Rebuilt Anew
by Asynca
Summary: Lara struggles with her mother's fate, and is forced to come to terms with Alister's death while his killer seems intent on anchoring herself in Lara's life. Action, Drama and Angst.
1. Chapter 1

Rebuilt Anew

By Asynca

* * *

I always found it impossible to sleep after a mission.

It was worse this time, though. For all I'd teased Alister about his simply atrocious taste in classical music, I'd gotten used to hear it playing faintly in the library until all hours of the morning. Without it, I could hear all the groaning sounds the new carpentry made as it supported what was left of the original manor. It reminded me of what had happened to my house, and inside it.

Poor Alister, I thought. There weren't many books left in the library anymore – I consoled myself that it was probably for the best that he wasn't alive to mourn the loss of his favourite collection.

It was too hot, I decided, and threw the covers off with a sharp movement. Without them, though, a breeze from the far window chilled my legs. I contemplated either changing into thicker pyjamas or getting up and closing the window.

With a familiar bleakness I remembered that I no longer had any winter pyjamas, they'd been burnt along with the library, most of the artwork and almost everything I'd collected over the years.

The window had to close, then.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, and eased myself upright. My toes sunk into the plush new rug under my bed. Despite being a pleasant feeling, it was hauntingly different to my old rug.

I stepped off the rug onto the cool marble floor beside the window. Outside, the gardens were still dark. Winston and I hadn't yet managed to contract any landscapers, and the yards were still littered with ash and debris. I had been putting off picking through it for anything that survived the explosion for days, now.

As I reached towards the handle on the window, I wondered why combing the yards was such a difficult task for me.

"If you close it, how am I going to get out?"

Hot adrenaline surged into my chest and wrenched me out of depressing vigil. There was no point in turning: that voice had come from directly behind me. _My _voice had come directly from behind me. I wondered if I really sounded like that.

"Well, there is this contraption called a door," I replied, just as dryly. It took conscious effort to not let my recent panic seep into my voice. "People often use it for entering and exiting rooms, when they're not able to smash through walls and leap through holes in the ceiling."

She chuckled shortly.

Slowly, I turned to face her, leaving the window open. If she turned out to still be hostile, I could probably jump through it without hurting myself too badly. Except for landing on bare feet in rubble; I winced at the thought.

Her expression was predictably neutral, with the same vacant, unnerving pupils. She did look more relaxed than I'd seen her, though, despite wearing that horrible bodysuit that looked extremely uncomfortable. Given her dark makeup, I supposed I had Amanda to blame for dressing her. If I were her, I'd have smacked Amanda in the mouth for that bodysuit.

"Come to play Chernobyl with my house again?" I asked, even though I knew she'd been compelled by Natla to make that particular visit.

"I came to consider my antecedent."

"The original you, you mean," I clarified. "And by consider, you mean watching me while I sleep?"

"Infinitely less trouble than approaching you while you're awake." Her eyes twinkled, despite the deadpan. "Your logic is flawed, though. You weren't asleep."

I leant against the windowsill, fairly certain she didn't mean to attack me. "_Your _logic is flawed, you mean."

She watched me intently, but didn't respond. I wondered if this was what she meant by considering me.

Despite her status as free, she still looked much like a thrall to me: the same ethereal glow about her eyes, and her veins were still easily visible through her pale and translucent skin. "Are you even human?" I wondered aloud.

Her response was to take my hand and place it gently against her throat. Under my fingertips, I could feel warm skin and a steady pulse. "Does that answer your question?" she asked. Unlike the wraithlike wail of other thrall, I could feel her voice was made by the vibration of vocal chords.

"Hardly at all," I confessed, letting my hand drop. This close to her, I could feel the air move when she exhaled. "You're not me, so how can you be me? Are you just a husk with my face?"

She didn't look as insulted as I would have been to be asked that question. "Organically, I am you. I am, in fact, a cloned, genetically altered version of you with the unfortunate ability to ponder my own existence."

"Hence the breaking into my house to 'consider' me."

"Yes." She lifted her own hand and touched her cheek, mapping the constellation of veins spreading from her neck. Then, she reached across the small space between us and touched her fingertips to my cheek, feeling for the same textures. When she didn't find them, her hand dipped to where she'd put mine on her own neck. My cheeks flushed; she'd know how much she'd startled me a couple of minutes ago when she felt the speed of my pulse. To her credit, if she noticed, she didn't comment.

Her eyes flicked back and forth between mine. It was reassuring that she didn't seem perfectly comfortable with the fact she was made from me, because I certainly wasn't comfortable about it.

"I suppose I thought that destroying Natla would somehow make you cease to exist," I confessed. "Is she dead?"

She nodded once, and slowly, as her fingers traced along my collarbone to the slope of my shoulder. From there, she paused.

"Any breakthroughs?" I asked of her exploration, since she clearly wasn't the type to volunteer information of her own accord.

"I could snap this like dry wood," she said calmly, moving her hand to my neck. I inhaled sharply, but it was clearly she was only speaking figuratively. "And this," she lay her hand on my sternum, just above my breasts, "I could thrust my fist clean through it." Her hand fell. "You seem so weak and fragile." I wanted to say that I wasn't, except that I'd seen firsthand her strength and speed, and I knew that I couldn't match either. "I don't intend to hurt you," she continued. "You're too much of an enigma to me."

I raised my eyebrows. "Is that the only reason?"

"The only reason you would comfortably accept."

Since she seemed perfectly content to stand and stare impassively at me, I took the initiative to move away from the window to the foot of my bed, where I'd hung my dressing gown. Her eyes followed me as I put it on. "There's nothing comfortable about this whole situation," I told her. "What do I call you, anyway?"

"Natla called me 'Thrall'." At my grimace, she continued, "Amanda called me 'Lara', when she wasn't addressing me using strings of profanity."

"I don't like either of those possibilities. Is there a third option?"

She shrugged. "It hardly changes anything. Call me whatever you wish, it's for your benefit anyway." She sounded like she was quoting B-grade porn, which went perfectly with that horrid bodysuit and dark makeup.

When I strained to think of an alternative, I realised I wasn't particularly given to creativity in the early hours of the morning when I'd not slept for days. "'Lara', I suppose, although it's odd to be using my name." What I _was _sure of, however, was that I wasn't going to watch 'myself' walking around in those clothes any longer. I gestured to my walk in robe. "Would you like something more comfortable?"

"If it would make _you _more comfortable."

She followed me inside. I selected a clean pair of full-length slacks and a fawn shirt, and gave them to her. "There's underwear in the drawers if you need it," I told her dismissively as I exited the robe. She seemed most amused that I didn't select it for her, but once again said nothing.

As the adrenaline drained from my system, several days' worth of exhaustion and fatigue returned. My bed loomed invitingly in the centre of my bedroom, and I decided I was too tired to care about being rationalised while I slept. I climbed onto my bed, still in my dressing gown, and collapsed on top of my duvet. Soon afterward, I heard bare feet pad across the floor and onto the rug. The mattress gave, and I opened my eyes for a moment to spy Lara sitting on the edge of my bed, wearing my clothes.

"If you change your mind about blowing up my house, at least have the courtesy to wake me up," I told her, and saw the hint of a smile on her dark lips. "And if you leave, use the door."

This time, she spoke of her own volition. "Given the choice, I'd rather not return to the catacombs." She ran a hand over my sheets. "And you might find it suits you to have a guard dog of sorts."

It was something I hadn't considered, but it made sleep more appealing. As I let myself slip into unconsciousness, I resolved to think about it more in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

Rebuilt Anew 1.2

By Asynca

* * *

It was uncomfortably stuffy in my room when I managed to finally wake up, and by the ambient warmth I was able to guess that I'd missed morning completely.

As I turned over my foot brushed something solid, and I remembered rather abruptly that I wasn't alone in my bed. I opened my eyes slightly and watched her chest rise and fall, realising with some surprise that she was actually asleep. It hadn't occurred to me at all that she would need to sleep; I needed to stop thinking of her as some sort of bionic human and recognise that despite her astonishing athleticism, she was just flesh and blood.

She stirred while I was watching her. I wondered if she were dreaming, and, if so, what someone like her would dream about. Although I suppose it hardly mattered what she dreamt about, unless she was dreaming about throttling me and happened to be a sleepwalker.

I accidentally woke her up when I turned onto my back. Her eyes snapped wide open, and she stared vacantly at me for a moment. I inhaled sharply, half expecting her to lash out at me.

She didn't. "I didn't mean to startle you," she murmured, her breath tickling my cheek. It felt disconcertingly intimate, at least until she told me bluntly, "I've discovered why you sleep alone."

I raised an eyebrow her.

"Nightmares. We're about to discover if I bruise easily or not."

Well, that was certainly a surprise: I didn't remember anything I'd dreamt at all. "I've half a dozen guest rooms if you do."

She shrugged lightly. "Safer, perhaps, but far less interesting than watching you fret like an infant." There was that twinkle again.

I contemplated kicking her out as a matter of principle, but I wasn't too happy with the idea of her wandering my house in the middle of the night. At least with her in my room I knew where she was, even if I wasn't fast enough or strong enough to stop her if she decided that the key to her inner peace was to kill me.

Additionally, there was the point she had raised last night. "Why would you volunteer to be my guard dog, anyway? Is it some sort of genie complex? I've freed you and this is how you intend to repay me?"

She smiled faintly. "No." Since she seemed content to leave the conversation there, I gestured at her to encourage her to elaborate. "I've spent my life so far as a slave. Now I find myself free, I feel useless." She looked toward me. "I'm not a whole person with a family, a history and a culture. I own nothing, am I nobody. I'm just a modified copy of you, and even you view me as some sort of monster. "

"Gosh," I exhaled at length, considering the weight of what she'd said. "That sounds depressing."

She didn't look particularly depressed, however. "So I might as well be useful while I figure out what is to become of me."

I looked back at the canopy of my bed. "Then it would be rather cruel of me to refuse to let you, wouldn't it?"

When I looked back at her, she was smiling at me. "What would you have me do?"

I looked over toward the window.

***

Just standing in front of the charred rubble made me feel exhausted. The explosion had sent debris for literally acres, and I was second-guessing my bright idea of picking through it myself before we brought in the land moving machinery.

Beside me, the other Lara had been surveying the landscape. "I'll get the larger pieces of stone and put them out the front of the property for the trucks."

I turned to her. "We're only supposed to be combing the debris, not clearing the yard."

She looked impassive. "So you comb, and I'll clear."

Whatever made her feel useful, I supposed, so I nodded at her. She shot off towards the perimeter of the yard in a dead sprint. I watched her disappear behind what was left of the hedges, and then turned my attention to my own task.

There was just so much rubbish. Most of it was completely unrecognisable; I wasn't even able to discern if pieces of marble and wood were fixture or furniture. Smaller items like silver cutlery and burnt artwork weren't worth salvaging. I'd hoped I'd find Father's telescope set, or really anything from his new study, but I didn't.

It wasn't until I'd moved much further away from the house that I found anything important at all. I almost stepped over it thinking it was just another cracked slab of foundation, then I noticed the engraving and stopped in my tracks.

_My dearest Amelia_, it read, _rest_ _in peace, wherever you are. –Richard._

It was the gravestone Father had commissioned when he'd finally come to terms with the idea that Mother was dead. I remembered the day with painful clarity.

I crouched in front of the stone, tracing the chiselled words with my fingertips. A sudden, incredibly unwelcome memory of my mother, face half-rotten, consumed me. My breath caught in my throat. _I shot her,_ I thought, _I shot her, and I didn't even try to save her. _I wondered if I'd just waited, if I'd somehow found the thrall stone and said those words to her... I wondered if like my Doppelgänger she could have been a sentient, rational being again. Even if she could have been, would she have still been my mother? I felt ill, and seconds from tears.

"I can put that one inside, if you wish."

I inhaled sharply in surprise, wrenching my hand away from the stone. I wanted to yell at her to leave me alone, but managed to smother that urge. It wasn't her fault she'd seen me find the stone, or seen my reaction to it.

I stood, turning to her. "No, I think it's best that..." The words died on my lips as I saw over her shoulder.

The whole yard was completely clean of any sort of wreckage; all that remained was ash stained gravel and uneven ground. My jaw must have fallen open.

"I ran out of big stones," she offered by way of explanation.


	3. Chapter 3

Rebuilt Anew 1.3

By Asynca

* * *

Zip was absent at dinner, even though I'd not told him about Lara yet. I supposed Winston must have.

Afterwards, we found him in the techroom, pretending to be immersed in coding.

"Have you seen _Single White Female_?" Zip's eyes, all that was visible above the monitor he was slouched in front of, travelled suspiciously between us as we stood in the doorway.

I glanced at the other Lara. As far as I could tell, there was no possible way anyone who knew me could mistake us for each other. For all she had my face and figure, she was taller, paler, covered in veins and had redder hair. Additionally, unless she planned to join a vampire cult, no natural person was going to look into those gold pupils be anything other than unsettled. "I really doubt she's planning to kill and replace me." Lara looked amused by the suggestion.

"Just saying," Zip looked pointedly at her, and then back at me. "Winston's looking for you. Something about the insurance," he said dismissively. It was uncharacteristic of him.

I'd meant to try and reconcile Lara with Zip, but I could see it was going to be a tad more difficult than I'd thought.

"Would you excuse us?" I asked Lara, who nodded mutely and took off somewhere.

Zip watched her leave from under a heavy brow. The second she was out of earshot, he leaned toward me. "Are you _insane_?"

"Zip, she's not a slave anymore, she's free now." When his expression didn't change, I continued, "Killing Alister, shooting you, blowing up my house: she didn't make those choices."

He leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. "I don't like it, Lara. Something's not right about her. Those..." he made a gesture to his cheeks, referring to her visible veins, "it's not right. How do you know she's still not working for Natla or Amanda?"

To be perfectly honest, I didn't. "Just a feeling, I suppose."

"Exactly. Well, I have a feeling, too. My feeling says you should get rid of her." Zip pointed at me. "Before she kills us all."

He was speaking out of fear, because he wasn't making sense. "Look, Zip, if she meant to kill us she already would have. You know what she's capable of."

He didn't look convinced. "Maybe she's supposed to spy on you."

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, because rebuilding my house is a top secret project of particular interest to megalomaniacs." When I realised I was raising my voice, I took a mental step back, exhaling and taking my hands off my hips. "I have nothing of interest anymore. Everything is destroyed but the thrall stone. There's very little else she could be here for other than what she says she's here for."

"Which is?"

Complicated, I thought, so I took a different angle. "Well, she has nowhere else to go, does she?"

He shrugged. "Has she tried a zoo?"

I could feel colour rising to my cheeks, but before I was able to yell at him, he threw up his hands. "Okay, okay. That was probably out of line. But you've got to admit, you're being sort of blasé about this. That thing was created by someone who wanted to kill you, for the purpose of killing you. She killed Alister, in case you've forgotten. It doesn't even matter who told her to or why. She's a weapon, not a person."

I remembered what Lara had said about being viewed as a monster, but bit my tongue. "You're just going to have to trust me on this one, Zip."

He shook his head with obvious disgust. "I sure hope you're right about this one, Lara, or we're going to meet up with Alister a lot sooner than we thought."

***

I found her in the new library.

"Lara?" She had spun the leather armchair toward the windowsill, and extended her legs up onto it, crossed at the ankles. I had done the same with a book on my lap quite often.

She didn't turn as I spoke to her. Instead, she said bleakly, "It seems I'm a rather polarising figure."

I approached her, but was distracted from her comment by the repair work in the library. I'd not been into it since the explosion, and it was surreal being surrounded by two stories of empty shelves. Given the difficulty the insurance company had been having replacing the rarer titles, I suspected they were dragging their feet, hoping that I'd reach the maximum sum insured purely on repairs so they wouldn't have to keep looking. It made me furious, but I had argued with them so many times that the staff refused to speak with me and communicated solely with Winston instead. Without the books it was still structurally my Father's library, but I felt like a stranger in it.

The refurbishments reminded me of what Zip had warned: I shouldn't try to forget that the very person who had taken my life and detonated it was seated comfortably before me, despite how benignly she presented. "How did Natla tell you to do it?

I'd meant to clarify what I'd said, not expecting her to fully understand. However, she needed no explanation. "Amanda gave me the order, not Natla. Amanda told me to get her Wraith Stone back, and not to worry about who I killed, as long as it wasn't you. She also told me to blow up the house, since I was here anyway."

My stomach knotted. "Amanda told you to do that?"

She inclined her head.

I walked past her and leant against the windowsill. "How did Amanda know to say _Ohk Eshivar_?"

"She didn't. Natla compelled me to do whatever Amanda wanted me to do."

I looked at her reflection in the glass. "You said you killed Natla," she nodded, "what about Amanda? I know if I were you, I would have wanted vengeance."

Lara slowly shook her head. "Amanda was just a pawn, wielded just as expertly as I was by Natla. As were you, to a large degree."

It was beginning to rain outside, and the newly exposed gravel glittered as the ash was washed into the soil. I was silent long enough to watch puddles form. "She's not the Amanda I used to know. I never would have expected her to go that far."

"She's a creature of her own suffering, but she's not that bad."

I turned around to face her, gesturing at the empty shelves. "She ordered my house to be blown up. She ordered you to kill people in my manor. If that's not 'bad', what is?"

Lara's face remained completely neutral. "Well, you took her Wraith Stone, and as you'd killed her partner and knocked her unconscious last time you crossed swords, I expect she didn't feel particularly compelled to sugarcoat her retrieval of it."

There were so many problems with what she'd just said, I couldn't even be bothered addressing any of them. "My point is," I told her, probably much louder than I needed to, "if I was wrong about her, what happens if I'm wrong about you?"

She watched me at length. At last, she took her feet from the windowsill. "You're under no obligation to house me. I appreciate your hospitality so far, but I will leave if I am not welcome." She stood, presumably with the purpose of leaving.

I grabbed her wrist. "Wait." She let me detain her, and although her face was typically difficult to read, I knew she was upset. "It's just..."

She interrupted me. "I know how I look to you. I know what I've done, and I don't expect to be able to compensate you for what you've lost. I'm not here for any purpose other than to try and understand myself. You can either trust that I'm telling you the truth, or not. The choice is yours, and I'm not going to force your hand." She looked very pointedly down at that hand, indicating I should let go of her. I did, surprised that she just hadn't pulled out of my grasp. "I'll return in a few days. If you don't trust me, call MI5. I'm sure one of forty special officers would fire a bullet that hits me."

With that, she opened the window and leapt cleanly out of it to the ground two stories below.

The knot in my stomach tightened as I watched her run across the yard she'd singlehandedly cleared for me. I remembered the gratification on her face when I'd thanked her for it. My cheeks flushed, I slammed the window shut with almost enough force to break it.

At least I knew where to find her.


	4. Chapter 4

Rebuilt Anew 1.4

By Asynca

* * *

"I still say Spitsbergen sounds like a cheap brand of cheese." Zip's voice buzzed in my headpiece as I fumbled around in my travel pack for my laptop. At least with Charter flights I could take as much luggage as I liked on board with me, and no one was harassing me to turn my wireless off. "Hey, Lara, check out what Google has to say about it. It was discovered by Willem Barentsz, and guess what its name means," I braced myself, "'Pointy Peaks'."

I rolled my eyes. _Men_, I thought, _eternal five year olds_. "Why don't you Google _that _and see what comes up," I slid my laptop across my knees and opened the screen. "And since you'll still have one hand free, why don't you use it to accept my connection request?"

"Oh, right." He presumably alt-tabbed out of his web browser and clicked OK, because I was granted access a moment later. I watched the hourglass on my screen while my profile loaded.

It still didn't make sense how the other Lara could make her way so quickly from the Arctic Circle to my home; then again, there were a lot of things that didn't make sense about her. I figured the best place to start looking for sense was back where I'd left her the first time, Hellheim. If Natla had survived the initial collapse of the Midgard Serpent apparatus, it probably meant that Hellheim hadn't completely flooded with eitr after all. I expected the other Lara would have gone back there, and if not, perhaps I could locate and somehow retrieve Thor's Hammer from the ruins of the summoning machinery, anyway. Then, if I couldn't do _that, _perhaps I could find Natla's body and confirm that at least that element of what my Doppelgänger had told me were true.

While I checked the weather forecast in Svalbard, I wondered if I would beat her to Hellheim. She couldn't be _that_ fast, could she?

Prior to take off, the sole flight attendant, who looked to double as the co-pilot, stepped out of the cockpit and swaggered toward me. "Can I get you anything before we leave, Lady Croft? A beverage, perhaps?"

I winced. "Just 'Lara', and a water would be brilliant."

He leaned on the empty seat in front of me, shooting me with what I supposed he thought was a winning smile. "I can't get you something a little... smoother?"

Wonderful, I not only had to deal with a pubescent male on my headset, but also in person. Fortunately, I could hear talking in the background at the manor, so rather than answer the co-pilot, I tapped the headset to pretend I was in the middle of a conversation. "Zip, who's that I hear there?"

"Huh?" I could hear him swivelling the chair, and walking somewhere. "Looks like the guys from the insurance company. I guess Winston let them in so they can do whatever they do."

The co-pilot was clearly planning to wait until I'd finished my conversation, so to avoid an argument I had no choice but to keep talking and hope he'd give up. "What exactly are they doing?"

Given that I had specifically told him I'd sworn off dealing with any matters of insurance, Zip was obviously confused by my sudden, unexpected interest. "Uh, looks like they're measuring where you want the stained glass window." There was a short silence before he said, "Hey, I'm going to use the Mens'. Back in five." The headset was muted.

Fan-bloody-tastic, now I was stuck with Mr. Smooth. I just could not be bothered. "Just a water, thanks," I tried to sound as dismissive as possible. Fortunately he was smart enough to take the hint, and returned a few moments later with my Evian and a glass. When it looked like he was going to try and pour it for me, I took the bottle from him, unscrewed the lid in one clean movement and swigged it straight from the bottle.

He may have tried to communicate with me after that, but I made sure I only looked directly at the screen of my laptop until he retreated back into the cockpit. While I was waiting, I hopped onto Questia to see what sort of information I could find on the subject of Doppelgängers.

Zip returned several minutes later. "Back. I know it's bad your house got blown up and all, but _man_ it's great to have toilets that always work." Winston had said something similar about the security system, I recalled.

Rather than respond to him, I highlighted some text in the article I was reading. "Listen to this," I began, "'Doppelgängers are generally regarded as harbingers of bad luck. When seen by others, one's Doppelgänger signifies illness or peril. Seeing one's own Doppelgänger is said to be an omen of certain death'."

"You need some research paper to tell you that thing is bad news? I'll tell you that myself: she's bad news, Lara."

I felt uneasy, but read on. "They even make an appearance in Norse Mythology. It says here that 'Vardøgr' is the word. And they're not bad luck, they're just regarded as premonitions." I leant back in my seat, tapping the drink bottle against my lips as I thought. "I wonder how Natla created her?"

"Didn't we decide the Thrall stone had something to do with it?"

"Yes, but _what_ exactly?" I had turned the stone over in my palm, testing is weight and checking for any fault lines that indicated it opened somehow. I'd also put on the gauntlets and tried much the same, to no avail. From his reports, Father hadn't had any luck in activating its powers, either. My stomach clenched as I thought of my usual next step: to consult Alister. I thought about the delight in his voice when I asked him for help, and the enthusiasm with which he researched information for me. His unparalleled knowledge of history and mythology had been priceless on many an occasion, and his passion for the subject was incredibly endearing. "I wish Alister were here," I said aloud. "He'd know something about how to make it work."

"Make it work? You want to make _more_ copies of yourself?"

"Intellectual curiosity, Zip." I sounded snippy, on reflection. Alister would have understood. "I'm going to turn my headset off for a while. I'll call you when I get to Svalbard."

The plane jerked, nearly knocking my laptop off my knees, and then began to taxi backward. Somewhat redundantly, the seatbelt light flashed above me.

I wondered what my Doppelgänger herself made of her mythology, since I presumed she would already have researched it. _A monster, _I thought, _and bad luck to boot. Talk about getting a bad rap._ I'd have to ask her about it. Perhaps more importantly, though, she would almost certainly know how she was created and possibly even how to use the Thrall stone. Normally it took months, if not years, to accumulate as much information as she'd certainly know by default. It struck me as an incredible pity that she'd shot Alister, because he would have absolutely loved having a first-hand resource like her freely available to him. I mentally chastised myself again for being rude enough to make her feel unwelcome.

While I was staring blankly at the article, lost in thought, a network warning popped up on my screen.

_Hey Lara, I know you probably don't want to be bothered, but Winston wants to speak with you. I can patch him through to your headset if you turn it on._

I closed the warning and switched on my earpiece. "Put him through."

"Go ahead," Zip said shortly.

"Good Evening, Lara!" Winston cheerfully greeted me. "I hope you arrived at the airport safely. I promise I won't bore you with tiresome details. I have the insurance company on hold. They want to know when they can come to the estate and measure for that stained glass window you commissioned. I thought you'd probably like to be here, since there was a problem with the sizing..."

As he continued, I lost track of what he was saying, a feeling of dread settling in my stomach. "Winston," I interrupted him, "are they on the phone? Or are they asking you in person?"

He sounded a little confused. "On the phone, of course. I know how you don't like strange people in the house when you're not here."

I slammed shut the screen of my laptop, hurriedly undoing my seatbelt and standing up. "Stop! Stop — don't take off!" I yelled at the cockpit. Then to Winston I said, "Both of you get out of the house immediately, and call the police. People posing as the insurance company are there right now." I heard him gasp, and then obediently hang up.

Strapping my backpack across my shoulders, I spied tarmac through the windows as I strode towards the door. The light plane hadn't yet reached the runway: that was good enough for me. I snapped the airlock and wrenched open the door, leaping through it. As I sprinted back towards the terminal, I could hear shouts of surprise behind me.

With rising horror I realised I had been lured out of my house just as deftly as a concert violinist plays her own instrument.


	5. Chapter 5

Rebuilt Anew 1.5

By Asynca

* * *

My mobile was buzzing against my back, but given that I was already travelling double the speed limit on an unfamiliar bike, it could wait. Besides, I was driving as fast as the bloody cruiser would let me, and there wasn't anything I could possibly do to get home sooner. I would have preferred sports motorcycle, but unfortunately as I had burst out of the terminal, the only motorcycle available belonged to a middle-aged Santa-bearded bikie who obviously wasn't about racing anywhere. A lot of shouting and a thousand quid later I had shoddy cruiser and an appointment to return it, complete with a promise of pain if I didn't. He needn't have worried about getting it back; the top speed was a measly hundred and ten miles per hour, and it shook like a frightened child when I pushed it past ninety.

At least it was too late at night for there to be much traffic on the M25, which meant I could floor it all the way to my turn off. Unfortunately, though, I had nothing to distracting me from my thoughts.

Mostly I wondered if my Doppelgänger – I had to stop myself from calling her Lara – had orchestrated this whole affair, or if she were someone's pawn. I also wondered what they were after. If it had been the Thrall Stone, wouldn't she just have taken it once I had freed her in the catacombs under my house? And why would she have alerted me to her presence in my room yesterday, if she'd simply come to steal the stone? Most of my belongings were yet to be restored, so it wouldn't have been too hard for her to find where I'd hidden it in the house. Perhaps they were after Excalibur? If that were the case they were going to leave empty handed; having heavily catalogued its shape, markings and traits, I'd buried it beside Father's makeshift grave at Guildford. I hadn't even told Winston about that, so it was possible the intruders, whoever they were, were searching the manor for it.

Something just didn't seem right about the situation. Perhaps I was completely wrong about what my Doppelgänger or her superior were after. Given how wrong I'd been about her, anything could be true at this point.

As I approached the road that lead to my house, two police cars overtook me, sirens blaring. Idiots, I thought. They were going to alert whoever was in my house that we were onto them!

I pulled up behind the cars, spotting Winston and Zip standing outside the property already speaking with an officer who had arrived earlier. He wasn't wearing a uniform; that was concerning. The last thing I needed was detectives trying to get themselves involved in my little disputes. If I'd known how quickly I'd be able to get home, I wouldn't have bothered with the police at all. I wanted to catch whoever was trying to burgle my house red-handed.

When Winston spotted me he waved, and that made the detective look towards me. I wasn't going to waste any more time with pleasantries, so I ignored the detective and ran through the front gate. Someone authoritative was shouting at me to stay put, but I chose to pretend I hadn't heard.

My main concern at this stage was the fact my pistols had been in my checked luggage, so I didn't have them on me. I'd left my shotgun at home, though, so I'd just need to get the shotgun from my bedroom and try and remember where I left the ammo.

The back entrance by the hedge maze was open, so I used it. I listened for a moment; no one was in this corridor so I didn't bother trying to sneak around the corners. It occurred to me that whoever had been in the house would likely have been smart enough to leave when Winston and Zip rushed out. Although, if they were mercenaries, it was also just as likely they weren't leaving without whatever they got charged to retrieve.

I put my ear against the door to the hall and listened. I could hear talking some distance away, but it sounded quite casual so I assumed it was the police. This door was in a particularly good location: unless anyone was looking directly at it, no one would notice it open and close. I slipped silently inside thanks to the new, freshly oiled hinges. As far as I could see, no one had noticed me enter. I could see three police walking along the gallery upstairs, with two panting Alsatians pulling at their leads. I waited for them to disappear into the hallway leading to the music room, and then rounded the staircase and ran up it.

The corridor to my room was also empty, and there was no one inside. I ducked into my closet and located my shotgun. I then spent a good thirty seconds tearing apart my wardrobe just in case I'd left any cartridges in any of my drawers. I only managed to find two single shells in the pockets of one of my coats, so I loaded them manually into the gun, hoping there weren't three adversaries.

Next stop was the library to check on the Thrall Stone. The main hall was still vacant, although the police had left the door to the music room open so I'd need to be quiet. I felt exposed running across the two levels of stairs, but I consoled myself that if anyone were to shoot at me, I was moving fast enough for them to have a good chance of missing.

As I entered the library, the first thing I noticed was that someone had been rifling through my papers on the desk. They were spread completely across the table, and some of them had also fallen on the floor. Without thinking, I went to spend a few seconds rescuing them – the police would be here any second and the last thing I wanted was important photos being trampled on. It looked like I was too late, however. Whoever had been burgling my house had obviously disregarded them and been walking around, and a number of them were soiled.

Quickly surveying the damage to them, I came across a photo with a very clear footprint on it. The heel was narrow and solid – it was a woman's shoe.

With growing alarm I placed my bundle of photos haphazardly on the table and surged up the stairs to the display case. There was a circle of glass missing, and the lock had been picked. I swung it open and tripped the hidden door – which slowly opened to reveal an empty pedestal.

The Thrall Stone was missing.


	6. Chapter 6

Rebuilt Anew 1.6

By Asynca, who needs to spend less time at the gym and more time with MS Word open if she wants to actually get to the fun stuff at some point THIS YEAR. Ugh.

* * *

After a morning of being forced to sit primly and play Good Little Heiress with the detectives – which involved pretending I was very, very sorry about messing about in a crime scene – the last thing I wanted to do be subjected to lecture by the world's most smug IT tech. However, Winston insisted he had business to attend to, and my clay pigeon launcher hadn't been replaced yet. Winston would never have agreed to use bone china as a replacement for clay pigeons anyway, even if I knew he secretly hated the monstrosity of a dinner set the insurance had replaced ours with. I would have to avoid him when he discovered the shattered remnants of it in the yard.

"I don't want to say it, Lara—" Zip began while I was reloading.

"—then _don't_ say it."

He ignored me. "I knew that Doppelgänger thing was bad news."

I lowered the gun to glance angrily at him. "Just throw the bloody plate, Zip."

He smirked and frisbeed a dinner plate into the air. I hurriedly lined up the shot and fired, and watched with far too much satisfaction as the plate exploded into shards.

"So what are you going to do about her?"

This time, I ignored him. "Next!"

He selected a delicate teacup from the wheelbarrow of cutlery and lobbed it into the air, where it met the same fate as its culinary counterparts.

"If we don't get that Thrall stone back, she's going to make hundreds of copies of herself. You can't just ignore it."

It was difficult to think with Zip harping at me, and I wondered if it was even worth trying to get him to focus on the difficult task of throwing china into the air. I looked pointedly at him.

He threw his hands up. "I know, I know, but you can ignore me, I get it." He then went about sorting through the china for something interesting to shoot.

He did have a point: I needed to do _something_. But what could I possibly do? Svalbard was a long shot now I couldn't be sure that what my Doppelgänger had said to me was true. Natla could easily still be alive; it could have been her boot print on my photos. Or it could have been Amanda. I couldn't guess what she'd be looking for, since she'd shown no interest in Excalibur since Bolivia. Unless... I remembered the Doppelgänger's comparatively kind opinion of her during our discussion in the library. I lowered my gun, feeling a cold sweat. My Doppelgänger could have told Amanda about the Thrall Stone, and Amanda, still not completely trusting my Doppelgänger, could have insisted that she retrieve it from my house herself. All she needed was a way to get me out of the house, which the Doppelgänger had very expertly created. I couldn't imagine anything with a trace of my genetics agreeing to be subservient to Amanda, so I assumed that Amanda must have found some way to have undone the Doppelgänger's freedom. Since I couldn't imagine Amanda managing to do something like that herself, I wondered if Natla were once again the cause of all my woes.

Zip had found a gravy jug and thrown it in the air while I was distracted; it hit the soil before I had a chance to shoot it midair. Feeling disgusting with myself, I shot it, and it split in half. Reloading, I shot each half in turn, and then their fragments in turn. I then shot the earth around them to bury them.

Before the cartridge was empty, I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! I don't think it's going to hurt anyone anymore."

I shrugged out of his touch, but nodded as I turned back towards the house. "That's enough target practice for today."

---

The new chairs in the library were far less comfortable than the old ones, I discovered as I consulted the trodden photo again. At some point I was going to have to face the fact that staring it wasn't going to offer me any answers. It could be anyone's boot print; it could ever belong to a stranger, though I couldn't think of any women I'd crossed paths with who'd have any sort of interest in stealing artefacts from my house... except Amanda, or Natla. If Natla were alive, she'd most certainly be interested in the Thrall Stone. If that were the case, however, I couldn't imagine why she'd send a whole crew of mercenaries posing as insurance company employees, especially if she had my Doppelgänger at her disposal. There were so many ifs, thinking on them all made my head spin. Nothing fit together properly, so I was clearly missing something.

_Svalbard_, I thought, _I should go back there and find out if Hellheim had flooded with Eitr_. It was a two day trip at the most, and it certainly beat sitting around my house moping about my inability to figure out who had stolen the Thrall Stone. There was an off-chance the Doppelgänger _had_ been telling me the truth about Natla's death. If I could find the body, I could at least rule her out as the one who now had the Thrall Stone. This was all assuming I could even get back into the chambers leading to Hellheim.

It was a long shot, but I had little else I could work with at this point.


	7. Chapter 7

Rebuilt Anew 1.7

By Asynca

* * *

"'_All Roads Lead to Longyearbyen'," _ I read aloud as the private coach rolled into the snow-covered town. I figured the sign was a poor English translation of literal directional information; philosophically, though, it rang very true for me. All roads _do _lead here, I thought. I wished I could just lay the whole Hellheim-Avalon-whatever matter to rest and get on with my life, whatever that would be without pursuing Father's legacy.

Although, I had to concede, despite my reservations about digging up _this_ particular grave, part of me was curious about the Thrall Stone. I suspected I would regret wanting to learn its secrets.

Being the only commercial hotel in Longyearbyen, the Radisson wasn't too difficult to spot. My driver, who didn't speak a single word of English, deposited me at the doorway with a grunt and insisted with a few sharp gestures that I carry my own luggage. It wasn't any bother, but I found his gruffness uncharacteristic of previous service on the island. I chose not to make an issue of it, however, and walked into the foyer of the hotel as he spun his wheels and drove off behind me.

The attendant on the reception desk greeted me with a broad, false smile as I approached her. "Concierge is currently engaged," she told me flatly. "You'll have to carry your own bags."

"Okay..." I said at length, watching her with some confusion. Occasionally I was mistaken for a game hunter, but that couldn't be the reason here: I didn't even have my holsters on. I couldn't understand the animosity.

She pushed a key across the counter toward me. "You are all on the second level."

I stared dumbly at the key. "Aren't you going to ask me who I am?"

"The booking was for 'plus twenty'. It doesn't matter, your name. You may go up to the second level." With that, she turned back to the computer, meaning to dismiss me.

I narrowed my eyes, thinking. Obviously she'd confused me with some large party of – by the sound of it incredibly annoying – tourists. "Look, I don't know who you think I am. I have a booking for Croft for three nights, I'm here alone."

She glanced toward me, checked the computer, and then blushed as she hurriedly snatched the key back. "Ms. Croft, of course," she didn't make eye contact as she spoke, "I, eh, I..." She made a gesture to her head that I didn't understand. "I apologise."

I nodded and accepted the second set of keys that she gave me. "It's okay, I think I understand. You have a large party of people here?" I was half making peace with her and half incredibly curious about this large group of people.

She laughed shortly, still nervous. "Americans," she told me. "These Americans, they are not tourists at all, I think. Most Americans, they are friendly, you know? These men, they are so rude. So rude to me." I listened, wondering what they could possibly have done to make half the town so passionately detest them.

"Men?" I probed.

She nodded vehemently. "I think they are Army. You should not go up there, I think." She inclined her head towards me. "Like sharkbait, if you do."

I raised my eyebrows at her. "Thank you," I told her sincerely. However, I definitely wasn't going to be heeding her warning. Large groups of armed men were definitely something that required investigation.

My room was on the ground floor, overlooking the sheer cliffs of ice behind the hotel. Despite the fact it was probably after ten at night, there was still an eerie glow about the sky and a faint green aurora hung on the horizon. Father would have loved that, I thought. He loved that sort of thing. During my childhood, I remembered several visits to Reykjavik that he'd had insisted on. Mother had gone to sleep in the car, and he had driven us around the coast for hours looking for any sign of aurora. I still had photos of the aurora we'd finally found, somewhere.

The image of Mother asleep elicited a short, painful memory of her body falling backwards as I emptied a cartridge into it. I jammed my eyes shut and tried to force the thought out of my head.

A serendipitous thump on the ceiling distracted me from the image. I looked up, almost expecting something to crash through the plaster. The muffled sound of heavy laughter and cheering followed another thump. I was beginning to understand why Longyearbyen hated the group. A third thump sealed the matter for me: I might as well go nose about, because I definitely wasn't going to get any sleep in the room tonight.

I unzipped my case and retrieved my holsters, looping them through my belt. I chose some ammo for my pistols, and then, thinking, fitted both of them with silencers. The last thing I needed was to be arrested. Although, judging by the behaviour of the locals, they would probably knight me for killing the Americans rather than throw me in a cell.

Testing the window to my room, I found it would open just enough to permit me to climb through it. I did so, feeling the sharp change in temperature as I stepped outside into the snow. I should have worn gloves, I thought. My fingers would just have to manage.

The hotel was structurally Tudor, which was handy: there were plenty of ways to scale it. Putting a boot on the window sill, I reached up and pulled myself onto the second level. Carefully, I inched along the ledge until I came to a window. I then wedged my grapple in between the sill and the shutter, creating a small gap which I put my ear to.

"...eight of hearts."

Another voice continued, "...pair of clubs."

"Bullshit!" That exclamation was followed by more thumping and more cheering. "I knew it!" The voice drawled, "You're full of it. Your face is like an open fucking book. I don't know why your wife believes anything you say!"

_Charming_, I thought, but kept listening.

"Hey, at least I actually have a wife!" A voice defended, which was followed by knee-slapping and more cheering. "Which is more than you can say, bro. You probably need directions to find your dick."

If I had to perch here all night listening to proverbial pissing contests I was going to end murdering the lot of them.

Just then, I heard a door be wrenched opened. The men fell silent as a familiar female voice hissed, "Would you idiots keep it down? The last thing we need is cops getting involved."

_Amanda!_ I inhaled sharply, losing my balance. I grabbed at the windowsill as I fell, managing to catch sight of pale blond hair over the sea of crewcuts before I slipped. I choked the grapple to prevent myself from falling flat-backed on the ground, but my weight simply yanked the pin out from between the windowsill and pane. The window slammed loudly as a result.

I landed awkwardly. Ignoring the pain my ankles, I drew up against the wall as tightly as I could, holding my breath.

The window above me flew open. _Be dark enough, _I willed to the sky. My pulse hammered in my ears as I counted the longest few seconds I could remember.

"It's nothing, boss," a voice said above me. "Probably just the wood moving from the cold."

I exhaled with relief as the window shut. Minding my tender joints, I climbed back through my window and eased myself to sit on the edge of the bed.

_I knew it! _I thought. I knew Amanda would have to be involved! I wondered if the Doppelgänger had been in the room with the men, but quickly dismissed that possibility. I doubted she'd have had the patience to tolerate that sort of behaviour. Additionally, the men probably wouldn't have been as boysy if a woman had been present. She was probably with Amanda, I decided. The Thrall Stone was probably there, too. If I could somehow sneak in and retrieve it... I gave up on that possibility, too. If Amanda had knowledge of how to use the Thrall Stone, she definitely wasn't going to share it with me if I put a gun to her head. Additionally, if I alerted her to my presence in the hotel, I wasn't going to get very far. Two, maybe three men, I could handle, not twenty. I was also definitely no match for my Doppelgänger. I would have to follow and silently observe the lot of them.

Another thump rattled my light fittings. The men were obviously not too concerned about Amanda's ire.

It was going to be a long night.


	8. Chapter 8

Rebuilt Anew 1.8

By Asynca

* * *

Even with the pillow curled around my head, I hadn't been able to drown out the sound of laughter and off-key singing for most of the night. That was the difference between the military and mercenaries, I decided: in the military if you had to get up at five a.m., you were strictly in bed by ten. Mercenaries, on the other hand, had somehow mastered the art of drinking and gambling into the early hours of the morning but managing to be out of bed again at the crack of dawn.

My head throbbed mercilessly as pulled the pillow from it and turned onto my back. Heavy footsteps walked across my ceiling, punctuated by the slamming of doors and the liberal dropping of large, heavy objects onto the floor. I glanced at the bedside clock: the glowing numerals read _05:17_. I briefly fantasised about tossing an armed grenade through their window.

If they were up, though, I also had to be.

I showered briefly and dressed, fussing over whether I should put on a drysuit or not. I wasn't sure exactly where they were going, but if they were headed back to Hellheim, chances were it was through water. I opted to wear the drysuit, but put my boots on and threaded my arms into my parka. The oxygen tank posed a further problem. I'd need it to dive that deeply, but if it was shot at, it would likely explode and kill me. I'd just have to somehow not get shot at, I decided, lacing it through the supports in my backpack.

I'd brought Thor's gauntlets and belt with me, so I figured I might as well wear those, too. If I could somehow find the hammer, it was my best bet against my Doppelgänger.

I waited patiently in my room until the noise above me ceased, and then I opened my door a fraction to allow me a view of the corridor. The men filed past me, all with pre-assembled AR-15s across their backs_. _No wonder the public hated them: they were loud, arrogant and armed.

I waited a couple of minutes after the men had disappeared, and, as expected, a figure in a pair of tight jeans strode past my door. However, she was unaccompanied. Where was the Doppelgänger? I waited a few more seconds just in case she were following Amanda, and then slipped out of my room as Amanda rounded the end of the hallway. I jogged to catch up, and then waited at the corner, listening.

"We'd like to speak with you, Ms. Evert…" The clerk was calling out.

I peeked around the corner and spotted Amanda with her back to me, exiting the building. She waved dismissively over her shoulder at the clerk, who threw her hands up in exasperation and unleashed a tirade of Norwegian to herself.

When the door closed behind Amanda, I ran through the reception after her, uncomfortably aware the staff were all watching me. Ignoring them, I pushed the front door open a fraction and glanced through it, spying Amanda's long legs disappearing into a four wheel drive. Once the door was shut and it began to pull out of the valet circle, I burst outside and accosted the closest taxi.

"Follow that vehicle," I ordered the driver as I climbed into the back seat. "But not too close, please." I took a wad of notes out of my belt and gave them to him without counting them.

His face brightened. "Okay," he agreed, and accelerated immediately, nearly causing me to smack my head on the back window.

The driver followed my directions, trailing the four wheel drive's progress along the main road. Eventually, as the vehicle turned out of town, he pulled over. "Only a mine on that road," he told me smugly. "We wait a little, then we follow. No trees, no buildings that way, you see."

"Good idea," I agreed, torn between being impressed and concerned by his knowledge of pursuits.

He extended his broad hand toward me. "Espen," he said definitively. "I am Espen."

I took it politely, although I wasn't sure why I'd need to know my taxi drivers first name. "Lara," I responded, and then thought for a second. "You haven't seen anyone around here who looks like me, have you? Only with redder hair and black lipstick?"

His blank expression answered my question well before he did himself. "I think I would remember someone who looks like you." He replied, winking at me. I very politely resisted the urge to gag audibly as he continued. "But I drive lots of tourists every day, and maybe I haven't looked carefully at all of them, you understand?"

I nodded grimly, expecting as much. "Is it safe now?"

He craned his neck down the road. "We find out, eh?"

The road was just as barren as he had advised it would be. The tundra was completely covered with old snow, and the lack of landmarks made it difficult to tell how far we'd driven or how fast we were going. It was almost hypnotic.

"The gate is just there," Espen gestured in front of the car, slowing to a stop. I followed the direction he'd indicated and spied what looked simply like a break in the snow cover.

"Thanks," I said simply and made to get out of the car, when he stopped me with a hand around my wrist. I looked sharply at him.

He ignored my glare. "Watch out for those in the mine, eh?" I realised he meant my guns. "Gas builds up in those tunnels."

"Duly noted," I told him, politely pulling my wrist free. "Thanks again."

As I climbed out of the taxi, I heard him call behind me, "Watch out for the polar bears, too!" He spun the car quickly in the snow and disappeared behind me.

Espen had been right about the gate. As I jogged forward in the snow, I found myself at the top of a small hill. Once I'd rounded it, the mine entrance – now partially obscured by two four wheel drives – was visible at the end of the road. There was absolutely no point in hiding: I was wearing black and everything around me was covered in snow. I'd just have to hope that the cars didn't contain any residual mercenaries, or that if they did, that the mercenaries were too sleep-deprived to aim straight.

Luckily for me, the cars were empty. I walked upright between them, appalled that Amanda hadn't employed anyone to guard them. Curious about just _how _appalled I should be, I checked the dashboard of one of the two for flashing security lights. When I spied none, I lifted the handle of the driver's side door experimentally and was horrified to have it easily before me. I stared at it for a second, dumbfounded. She wasn't _that _stupid, was she? Maybe stupid wasn't the right word, I thought, following my instinct to check inside the glovebox and underneath the seats. It was more plain arrogant than stupid. As I emptied several cartridges full of machine gun bullets into the snow, I decided this behaviour wasn't so different from how she'd been at university: she'd always been a little careless. Although back then it had been more to do with blind optimism than conceit.

Once I'd cleared the two cars of ammo, I left them and followed the churned snow to the entrance of the mine. I paused for a moment to listen, and when I couldn't hear either footsteps or voices, I entered.


	9. Chapter 9

Rebuilt Anew 1.9

Asynca

* * *

The mine shaft dropped steeply soon inside the entrance, and I didn't want to risk drawing attention to myself by calling up the lift. Fixing my grapple around a support pillar, and launched myself into the cavity. Unfortunately, my line ran out well before I reached the bottom of the shaft. Not wanting to activate any of my LEDs before I knew exactly where the mercenaries were in the complex, I ran my hands blindly over the wall in front of me, searching for hand-holds or somewhere else I could fix my grapple.

As I was inspecting a crevice, I felt a rush of air past my face.

My blood ran cold, and before I had an opportunity to consider what could have caused the breeze, I'd already released the grapple and reattached it to the crevice by reflex. When my feet found the ground, I backed against the wall as my grapple line recoiled, listening.

Nothing, I couldn't hear anything. I could, however, smell how musty the air was – in coal mines a signature of methane, if I remembered correctly – and it nearly made me cough. The ambient dust and gas was clearly smothering the acoustics. Luckily, though, it meant I was able to hit my LEDs, because it would also reduce the visibility and the distance the light travelled.

I tapped my shoulder to switch on my light, casting my eyes quickly around me for the source of the breeze. I didn't expect to see much; the lazy speed at which the dust was moving through the air indicated that whatever it had been was long gone.

The mine split into a series of branches ahead, and I followed the footprints and unsettled dust through the corridor of one of them. The thick concentrate of gas was making me breath heavily to extract enough oxygen, and I considered using my breathing apparatus to avoid asphyxiation. However, I didn't want to waste the oxygen in case I needed to do any sort of diving, as there was no way I'd be able to get back into Hellheim the way I first had without a full canister. I decided to weather the discomfort for now.

It wasn't long before I located the lot of them. The men, as they generally do in large groups, were making a right racket up ahead. I switched off my LED, and crept forwards along the wall towards them.

There seemed to be several conversations going at once between the men, and I wasn't able to make out any useful details. I did, however, hear Amanda very clearly shout, "If you guys don't shut up, I'm cutting your pay in half. I'm trying to concentrate!"

Someone made a whispered comment in reply that sounded suspiciously like, "That time of the month?" I doubted it was audible to Amanda.

I rounded a corner, and found myself directly behind the whole group, staring at their backs. I inhaled sharply, smothering a cough as I crouched in the shadows. Fortunately, it was dark and no one had seen me.

Through a forest of men's legs I could see Amanda with her back to me, studying what I assumed was a map.

One of the mercenaries approached her as she turned it sideways. "You want to give me a look at that, boss?"

She looked sharply at him. "You actually think you'd be able to read this?" She laughed once, shortly. "Go back to high school."

_Ouch_, I thought. Although by the look of his flattened nose and thick neck, I tended to agree with her assessment. There was definitely something Neanderthal about the lot of them. I was busy musing why anyone would hire a group of brainless thugs to do _anything_, when an idea came to me. I doubted even in clear conditions I'd have the precision to dispatch eight or so mercenaries without getting shot myself, despite having the element of surprise on my side. If I wasn't mistaken, though, I wouldn't have to shoot anyone if the men were as stupid as they behaved and looked.

I stood up, taking a deep breath as my heart began to race. "Fancy meeting you lot here," I said clearly and loudly.

Listening to shouts of surprise, I bolted back up the shaft to draw the men around the bend and away from Amanda. When I heard her yell, "_No...!_" I threw myself around the corner and braced for impact, clamping my hands over my ears.

I hadn't been wrong: one of those idiots would open fire at me. The result felt like standing at the origination of a clap of thunder: the mine around me shook violently and I fell to my knees. A millisecond later I found myself thrown forward to the wall of the shaft as a tongue of fire swept quickly over the top of me.

It was over as quickly as it had started. I stood up shakily, activating my LED. Behind me the floor of the mine shaft had collapsed into an area well beneath it, and the men seemed to have all fallen into the darkness. I tossed a flare into the hole to gage the depth, and watched it freefall until I lost sight of it. Not wanting to meet the same fate, I threw my grapple at a leaning support pillar ahead and swung easily across the chasm.

Jogging around the bend, I spotted Amanda strewn on the floor of the shaft, struggling to pull herself up. Before she succeeded, I threw myself on top of her and sat across her hips to immobilize her. Hands tried to curl around my throat, but I wrestled them free and pinned them on the ground beside her head.

Trapped, she glared at me. "Why can't you just leave me alone?" She hissed, and I half expected her to spit in my face.

I scoffed. "You're the one who robbed _my_ house! Again!"

"I didn't hurt anyone!"

"_This _time," I pressed her wrists into the gravel. "Or have you forgotten that you killed Alister?"

"You killed James first!" She struggled beneath me.

"I was being shot at, Amanda! He was ordering people to kill me!"

"We _told_ you to stay away!" She was yelling loudly enough for her voice to bulge my eardrums. "But you didn't listen! You never listen!"

"You knew that about me when you told Rutland to get me involved!" I shouted over her. "None of this would have happened if _you_ hadn't had _me_ contacted!"

She was silent for a moment, staring poisonously at me. We were both panting, and the tip of my nose was tingling. "So what now, Lara?" She asked me dryly. "Are you going to pistol-whip me again and leave me to asphyxiate?"

"Believe me," I lifted her wrists up and smacked them into the gravel again to accentuate my point, "I'd like to."

"'Would that make us even?'" she quoted me petulantly.

I feigned towards her in anger, watching her wince as if she expected me to release one of her wrists and punch her. Instead of deigning her with an answer, however, I changed the subject. "So where is she?"

Amanda continued to glare at me, although I thought I may have seen a look of confusion pass over her face.

"Where is she, Amanda?" I prompted her, louder.

"Where's _who_?" She yelled back at me, just as loudly.

Beside us, a voice said calmly, "Me."

Out of the shadows, my Doppelgänger walked slowly forward, a look of sinister amusement clear on her face.


	10. Chapter 10

Rebuilt Anew 1.10

Asynca

* * *

"You!" Amanda struggled again. Before I could hurry to further restrain her, she called, "_Ohk Eshivar!_"

For a moment it felt like everything slowed down. Waiting for my Doppelgänger to react was like watching a priceless vase slowly fall, knowing any second it would reach the tiles and smash into a million smithereens. Finally, she looked casually towards Amanda and said with a very faint smile, "Following your orders has already caused enough damage, don't you think?"

I opened my mouth to say something, but found myself at a loss for words. What was going on? If my Doppelgänger wasn't under Amanda's control, why did she lure me out of my house at the precise time Amanda had come to rob it?

The Doppelgänger continued her path out of the shadows, walking right up beside us where she crouched.

"I don't get it!" Amanda sounded panicked. "_Ohk Eshivar!" _ she repeated, and then looked to me. "Why isn't she obeying?"

"I freed her," I managed.

"You _idiot!_" Amanda spat, trying to throw me off her. "Let me go, I'll take care of her!"

The Doppelgänger watched our exchange placidly, before reaching between us and unbuttoning Amanda's jacket. Amanda's anger faded into surprise. "Wh-what are you doing?"

My chin against my chest, I watched the Doppelgänger's hand feel around inside the coat, uncomfortable and not sure exactly what I was witnessing. After a few moments, my Doppelgänger's eyes brightened, and Amanda scowled. When her hand withdrew from Amanda's jacket, she was holding the Thrall Stone.

"I see," Amanda said venomously. "You freed her, and because she's oh-so eternally grateful and all that, you now effectively have a clone."

The Doppelgänger stood, pushing the Thrall Stone into her belt; it occurred to me she was still wearing my clothes. "I _am_ grateful," she told Amanda.

I continued to stare dumbly at her for a second, before frowning at Amanda. "You mean she's not with you?"

Amanda raised her eyebrows at my question. "Does it look like it?"

The Doppelgänger remained still. "As I thought was already established," she said impassively, looking particularly at me, "I have been freed. Therefore, I don't understand why either of you find it so difficult to believe I am under neither of your control."

While I was trying to piece together what exactly was happening, Amanda twisted abruptly beneath me, taking advantage of my lapse of concentration to free herself. Bucking me off, she tore the wraith stone from her throat and swept a globe of flame towards my Doppelgänger, who dodged it easily. As a result, it smacked heavily into wall of the shaft behind her.

The ground beneath us rumbled.

Amanda and I glanced at each other, and saw horrified apprehension written across her face.

The ground beneath us opened up, and my stomach leapt into my mouth as I felt myself falling. I cast my eyes around for a grapple hook, but there was so much rubble falling around me I couldn't even see if there were any walls beyond it. Somewhere beside me I could hear Amanda screaming; again, due to the assorted rubble and partial darkness I couldn't discern how far away she was. I didn't really have much choice: I would have to throw my grapple blindly and hope something would catch.

The first cast hit falling debris and snapped immediately back, whipping me on the hand. Ignoring the pain, I tried again. As I was continuing to cast, I felt a pull on my backpack. I glanced down to my shoulder and spotted a pale hand gripping my straps with white fingers.

"Hold on," I called behind me. Long legs curled around my waist.

After what seemed like an eternity – but was probably only several seconds – my grapple took. The sudden halt in motion snapped my neck back, and the back of my head collided with some part of Amanda, who shrieked. Rubble fell around us, and then disappeared below.

We dangled, suspended in the middle of nowhere as my LED lit only the dust around us.

I took a flare from my belt and tossed it up my grapple line, where it threw light on part of an intricately decorated stone pillar before falling as the rubble had.

"How much weight can your line hold?" Amanda asked shakily from between my shoulder blades.

"Three hundred and twenty pounds," I told her. "But it's not the line I'd worry about, it's that old stone I've landed the hook on." Checking my gloves were secure, I took a firm hold of the line above me, straining to pull us both up it. My biceps smarted at the combined weight of us.

We reached the hook, and I was able to plant my boots against the pillar. Now within range of my LED, I could see the pillar was decorated with Nordic runes. What I couldn't see, however, was where the pillar came from, or if there was anywhere I could swing up to. My single LED was no help.

"Amanda, are you able to generate some sort of light with your powers?"

"Okay..." she said uncertainly, and the whole wall and area lit up around us.

We had fallen into what seemed like a vast cavern; some distance above us I could see the arch of a ceiling, and the place we had fallen through. The pillar we were hooked on was part of a huge series of platforms and ancient mechanisms, most of which were far, far below us. The ground – assuming it were reachable at all – was so far away it wasn't visible even with Amanda playing sun. It looked like we were going to have to grapple-hop down; my neck and arms ached at even the thought of it.

I made out a small ledge on top of the pillar; it seemed like a good place to regroup before the long descent ahead of us. "Amanda, can you reach that?" I asked her, squinting at the edge.

There was a pause. "You want me to climb up there?" she asked me incredulously.

"Unless there's some other way you can get there." I probably sounded a little sarcastic, on reflection.

She exhaled with what sounded like annoyance, and the bright light surrounding us faded.

During Amanda's struggle to get from me to the ledge, I probably endured a good five minutes of being pulled and squished and trodden on. I was fairly certain I'd heard of childbirth that was less slow and painful. Once she'd finally disappeared on top of the pillar, I swung myself up easily. There wasn't enough space to stand, so I sat on the edge to shake out my arms and shoulders.

Amanda was lying on her back, panting as she stared blankly above her, looking rather traumatized.

"I once knew a girl who would have vaulted up here in two seconds," I commented. The brief memory I had of a cherubic face smiling up at me from inside a dig was a sharp contrast to the woman now reclined beside me.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not twenty anymore."

"You're not eighty, either." I flexed my hands back, loosening the muscles in my forearms. "Although from that performance, you wouldn't have known it."

She shot a poisonous glance at me. "Do you think you can spare me the sanctimony for, like, five minutes? I did just prevent us both from being torn limb from limb by that monster."

"And I suppose the floor just collapsed by itself, did it?"

Amanda shook her head with some measure of defeat, as if she didn't expect me to understand. "She may look like you, but there's something evil inside." I watched her for a moment as her eyes traced over the face of the rock just above her. I wondered what sort of experiences had led her to make such an appraisal of my Doppelgänger.

She seemed surprised by my silence. "What? You think she was going to give us a leg-up out of the mine and use the Thrall Stone as a doorstop?"

I looked down at my legs dangling over the edge of the pillar, gathering my thoughts. The truth was I had absolutely _no idea_ what I had expected her to do. Until that moment I'd been completely convinced she was working for Amanda. Amanda was capable of a lot of dark things, I'd discovered, but she was certainly no expert at lying. Her fear had been genuine. So, what had the Doppelgänger been doing? Had she planned all along to position me to be out of the house so Amanda could take the Thrall Stone, only to steal the stone from Amanda later? It seemed unlikely, given that I'd basically given her free range of my manor. At any point she could have taken the stone herself.

I had that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach Natla had always given me; the feeling that I was one step behind her, always trying to figure out what she was up to and how she was using me. Although, for once I was fairly certain Natla was actually dead. It was worth remembering, however, that Natla had been the creator my Doppelgänger – maybe there was something to that?

Then again, I had to consider the possibility that my Doppelgänger _had _been legitimately surprised to see us, and _had _been intending to escort me and the Thrall Stone back home to England. I shook my head to myself; it still didn't explain how she knew about the stone, though, and where to look for it on Amanda.

"Maybe she was going to prevent you from using the stone," I offered, not sounding very convinced.

Amanda laughed once, scornfully. "Sure, to protect the world from the zombie army I was going to create." When I directed her a probing look, and she laughed once again. "Oh, please, Lara. I've got no aspirations of world domination. I was just curious to see if it actually worked."

"The mercenaries were just for company, then?"

She ignored my sarcasm. "I already have amazing powers at my disposal," she gestured to her throat, where the Wraith Stone hung, "if I'd wanted to take over the world, I wouldn't have waited until now."

She had a point. I had to also remind myself that last time we had been in Hellheim, she had actually come with the intention of assisting me to _save_ the world, not destroy it or take it over. "It's just difficult to think of you as anyone other than the bad guy." I thought twice about elaborating, but did so anyway. "I haven't forgiven you for killing Alister."

"Well, I haven't forgiven you for killing James," she shot back immediately.

Abandoning our argument, she rolled onto her front and pulled herself to the edge of the pillar to peer into the darkness. "So how do we get down?"

"The same way we got up." My arms were still sore from the three or so metres I'd climbed shortly before, I hardly wanted to think about what they'd feel like after the many hundreds of metres we had to go before we reached any sort of serviceable platform. My Doppelgänger would also be down there, I thought, remembering how easily she'd jumped out of the library window and how little the fall had bothered her.

Amanda looked about as enthusiastic about the prospect as I felt. "So I just hold on to you, then?"

"Unless you fancy a swim in the Eitr." I extended my hand toward her, and she took it.

* * *

End Part One


	11. Chapter 11

Part Two

Rebuilt Anew 2.1

Asynca

Note: _Many Historical liberties / Screaming, I have taken them / Please don't hang me from Yggdrasil / Kthnx_

* * *

I remember when I was a little girl, my father, without my mother to talk sense into him, used to take me spelunking in Czechoslovakia. I was probably about ten at the time, but I clearly remember two things about those excursions. Firstly, that I was absolutely terrified one of the bats would fly down and bite off my nose (at the time that was about the worst thing I could imagine would happen to me), and secondly, that for _days _after we got back I wasn't even able to lift my arms high enough to hold the banister on the stairs, they hurt so much.

What I had just realised was that any pain I thought I had endured as a result of spelunking at age ten was rubbish. The new definition of pain as I understood it was abseiling for an hour with an adult woman on my back.

By the time we finally reached the roof of the huge mechanism, the muscles in my shoulders and arms were visibly shaking. As soon as my boots hit the stone, I shrugged Amanda off and staggered forward a few steps, panting. I took off Thor's Guantlets and my gloves: in addition to aching horribly, the palms of my hands were covered with fresh, angry blisters. Some of them had already burst.

I went to reach behind me for a medical kit, but the movement strained my already sore arms. I couldn't even reach my straps to unclip the backpack.

Amanda had been watching me, and rather than assisting me to reach a kit, she simply laughed at my predicament.

I gestured at her with a bleeding hand. "Any more from you," I told her sharply with zero humour, "and for the rest of our trip through Helheim, I'm riding on _your _back."

She finished her laugh with a smirk and walked slowly away from me to stretch her legs. I scoffed at her, muttering as I gingerly tried to reach my clips. "Who wears _high heels_ into a mine, anyway?" Probably the same sort of person who leaves their car unlocked in a foreign country, I thought. Certainly not the girl I used to explore digs with.

She glanced back over her shoulder, shrugging. "I always wear them. They're comfortable."

"They're ridiculous." I said, finally managing to unfasten my pack, and swinging it around my torso to unzip it. "You hit one kink in the stone and they'll snap off and break your ankle." I took antibacterial solution out of my pack and doused my throbbing hands in it.

"And I bet you're just _so_ concerned about my welfare."

Unwrapping a sterile pin, I proceeded to lance my blisters. "Of course I am," I glanced up to enjoy her surprise until I continued, "because I have to carry you if you can't walk, and I don't fancy pulling my back."

She scowled and turned away from me, arching her own back to loosen it after the climb.

Once my hands were tended to, I took out sports tape and just wrapped it around each palm, looping it around my thumbs. I didn't want to waste time being overly prudent about what was essentially just blisters. I then slipped my gloves and the guantlets back on and very carefully refastened my backpack. "Alright, let's find her and get that stone back."

Amanda nodded grimly, and followed me as I jogged across the vast stone towards the other end of the platform. Now that we were closer to the distant floor of the cavern, a very dim blue glow was visible from much lower in the room. I could take a fairly safe guess that far beneath us the floor was a sea of Eitr, as I had previously suspected. I searched the edge of the platform for a way down.

"Wow," Amanda commented under her breath as she took an apprehensive peek over the edge.

I realised she was referring to the height of mechanism, and the distance to the Eitr. Heights were something I got over long ago, and I found it amusing she was still bothered by them. "It only takes twenty metres to kill you," I told her, lowering myself to the edge of the stone, "so the other several hundred are irrelevant."

"Was that supposed to be reassuring?" she asked me dryly as I dropped down to the level below.

I smothered a yelp as my arms bore my weight for a couple of moments as I dropped. I didn't know which hurt more: my muscles, or my blistered palms. However, I didn't want to give Amanda anything to bother me about, so I kept my mouth shut. Behind me, she dropped down more smoothly than I'd have expected her to in those boots.

The second level was a series of corridors. The surface of the floor would have once been paved with smooth stone, but over time the stone had eroded and much of the surface had accumulated against the walls, giving the floor a bowed appearance. It was also clear that fairly recently the corridor had been filled with fluid of some sort, as the dust had settled into ripples on the floor. My LED light bounced off the walls of each corridor and where it touched the floor the ripples appeared to move like snakes. It was unsettling.

We reached a central room, which, as far as I could see, was empty. I walked into the centre of it, examining the space around me.

Amanda rounded the doorway at a sloppy jog, looking like she was about three minutes from a heart attack. "God, Lara," she complained breathily, leaning against the stone. "Not all of us are tri-athletes."

I had hardly even been jogging. I suspected her poor fitness was a direct result of simply paying other people to do the legwork for her, and I wondered if she'd picked up that expensive habit off Natla.

"What's that?" she asked while I was looking around. I followed her line of sight to an iron plate on the wall.

We both approached it. Like the pillar, it was embossed with an incredibly intricate design that at first seemed like the pattern of skin in a fingerprint, but on closer inspection was line after line of runes. I'd studied the old runic alphabets in second year university, but as much as I was able to read them phonetically as I had the Thrall Stone, I had absolutely no idea what they meant. At times like this I'd always deferred to Alister; he would almost certainly have been able to read the plate. A nasty feeling of emptiness began to grow in the pit of my stomach, and I quickly dismissed it. This was no time to get sentimental about fallen comrades, regardless of how helpful they may have been.

Partially out of reflex, I unhooked my handycam from my belt and ran some footage of the designs. When the camera panned to Amanda, her lips were moving silently as her eyes traced over the surface.

I looked up from the screen. "You can read it?" I asked her, incredulously.

She stopped reading and glanced at me, a little surprised. "Of course, it's Futhark." When that elicited no recognition from me, she raised her eyebrows. "It's the alphabet that Odin is said to have received through self-sacrifice and self-torture."

I snorted; it made sense why Amanda had bonded with the concept.

She ignored me and raised her hand, tracing over the runes with curiosity. "It's from _Hávamál_," she told me, elaborating, "A long poem detailing Odin's trials."

"Well, translate it," I directed her, wishing I'd refreshed my memory about runes prior to coming to Svalbard, "maybe it's a clue about what this room is for."

"_Downwards I peered / I took up the runes, screaming I took them / then I fell from there_," she said carefully, and then shrugged. "It just repeats that, over this whole plate."

I glanced around the room; Amanda helpfully lit it for a few moments. There were no other features at all.

Hooking the camera back on my belt, I reached out and tried pushing the plate. When that achieved nothing, I tried pulling it.

"I'm guessing we're supposed to go down somewhere," Amanda said with some amusement, clearly making fun of my struggles with the plate.

"But where?" I asked, releasing it and gesturing around us. "The room is sealed."

While I crouched down to examine the surface of the floor, Amanda proceeded to read the plate again to herself. "_Opandi nam...Ohk fell ec aptr __þaðan..._"

No sooner had she said the last clause, several runes on the plate began to glow. I stood, reaching out to touch them experimentally and in doing so noticed that my guantlets were also glowing. Looking back at the runes, I was able to read them as the sounds _Ohk Fell. _

Suddenly, I felt the ground liquefy beneath me. I shouted with surprise, but was cut short as I connected with the stone floor a level below. With the air knocked out of me I coughed weakly, staring up at the ceiling... which was completely whole. There was absolutely no sign two people had just fallen through it.

I stared at it mutely.

Beside me, Amanda groaned and put a hand to her head. "As great as it is to finally discover Odin's magic runes," she said dryly, "I'd be happier if we could do a lot less falling."


	12. Chapter 12

Rebuilt Anew 2.2

Asynca

* * *

Once I'd recovered from falling through solid rock to land flat on my back, the first thing I noticed about the second level was that it was much brighter than the first. The source was two waterfalls on either side of the area, each glowing an intense blue I was familiar with from my previous experiences with Eitr. Above each waterfall was a turntable.

Rolling onto my side and heaving my aching body upright, I went to approach the Eitr.

Amanda was still lying on her back, but a rare smile had spread across her face. "You realise we just discovered some of Odin's Magic Runes?" I did realise, of course, and it was a truly monumental discovery for the sake of archaeologists and Norse scholars everywhere. On the other hand, I was also aware of the fact that my Doppelgänger had taken off with an artefact that could produce whole armies of thrall, so I opted to not join her in rapture. "Historians have been working for _centuries _to try and figure out how runes can be used for divination!" She laughed gratuitously. "Oh, Oxford are going to be _killing themselves_ that they didn't give the contract to me."

On closer inspection, the waterfall was taller than I expected and I couldn't reach the turntables. "Priorities, Amanda," I called over my shoulder. "Escape alive first, _then_ rub defeat in your enemies' faces."

She chose to ignore me. "It's interesting that '_Ohk_' is the precursor to the power word, because there's always been dispute about its role in grammar," she continued, and I listened with amusement. This was the sort of monologue I'd been used to hearing enthusiastically babbled through my earpiece. I wondered what Amanda and Alister would have made of each other if he hadn't been shot on her orders. It was an odd thought.

"...and _that_," Amanda finished her point, which I confess I didn't catch most of, "will be the moment when the Dean voluntarily offers his position to me, and I refuse it and let him suffer forever and feel inadequate in a post that he doesn't deserve."

"That's a rather elaborate fantasy," I commented, examining the wall around the waterfall for footholds, "he must have done something quite nasty to you."

"You remember that dissertation I wrote about the importance of ritual in Mayan subcultures?" I did, actually, so I nodded. "He graded it," she said darkly.

"Oh." I raised my eyebrows. "Not what you expected, I gather?"

She stood, her face crumpled once again in a familiar scowl. "I deserved the goddamn Wolfson Prize for that project, and he didn't even give me honours."

Since dissertations were marked by a panel of expert scholars, which undoubtedly Amanda herself knew, I wondered why she had singled him out to be the nexus of her hatred. Rather than risk breaking the tenuous truce between us, however, I opted not to probe further into the matter. Luckily, as I was testing my weight on some loose stones on the wall, she continued anyway. "When I appealed the decision, he personally wrote a letter to the committee expressing 'serious concerns' about my research methods."

I turned to face her for a moment before climbing. "Universities are all about power play and politics," I reminded her, "don't take it personally. He was probably working on exactly the same paper and was irritated you published first."

I didn't get the reaction I was expecting from Amanda, though. In fact, she appeared not to have heard me at all and was staring past me into the waterfall.

The next thing I knew, I was flying through the air and then tumbling across the ground. I could hear Amanda shouting and I was dimly aware of light flashing around me, but everything was spinning so quickly I wasn't even able to discern if I were still rolling or if I had stopped. After a few terrifying moments I realised I was lying on my back, and that Amanda was fighting something in the area next to me. By reflex I immediately tried to get up, and found myself with a cheek to the cold stone.

I sleepily pondered the idea of a scholar fighting zombies with magic; it was such a ridiculous concept that I found myself laughing hysterically into the floor. It wasn't until everything fell silent that I realised I wasn't very conscious and that I hadn't been moving at all, let alone writhing in laughter.

The lights had stopped at some point, and hands were shaking me. "Lara! Get up, you idiot!"

I tried to follow her orders, but couldn't. She flipped me over like a ragdoll, and it was a good several seconds before her face swam into focus. She looked angry; I heard the sound of her slapping my cheek to rouse me before I felt it. I swatted her hand away. "Give me a moment."

I could see her legs move in and out of my vision as she paced nervously around me. I managed to subdue the desire to be sick enough to sit up and let the room settle.

"Here." Amanda crouched beside me and pressed something against my head. After a moment she pulled it away and said with alarm, "Oh, God!" then hurriedly pressed it back against my head.

"Head wounds always bleed a lot," I told her automatically, guessing the reason for her panic. "It doesn't necessarily mean it's serious." I gingerly pressed my skull around where Amanda was mopping up the blood to test for fractures. I couldn't feel anything too concerning. "What happened?"

She seemed surprised I didn't know. "When you got too close to the Eitr, one of those big zombie-thrall monsters came out and smacked you squarely in the back of the head."

I considered what she had said: alone, I almost certainly would be dead. "Thanks," I said, with genuine appreciation.

She seemed uncomfortable. "I should have let it kill you, at least then I'd still have my coat," she said huffily. I was confused by the reference to her coat, until I noticed that she was crouched in front of me in just jeans and her corset top. Her coat was what was pressed against the back of my head.

"But it's freezing," I said slowly in recognition of the choice she'd just made. Now I was able to focus again, I spotted goose bumps on her arms.

"Just shut up about it, okay?" she hissed at me, pressing harder on the back of my head. "Stop bleeding so we can get out of here and go somewhere safer."

"I can bleed and walk at the same time," I protested, taking over from her to push the coat against the back of my head. I stood very carefully. "It's one of the reasons I've survived so long."

I felt a little unsteady, but not enough to cause me to topple immediately over again. I was fairly certain I could avoid vomiting for now, despite how overpowering the nausea was. I took a couple of experimental steps and wasn't too pleased with the results. I couldn't be too fussy, however, as it was either remain put and possibly be torn limb from limb by thrall, or keep moving and deal with my injuries as best I could.

As we searched for a way down I cast one last look at the turntables above each waterfall, feeling distinctly uneasy about leaving them open.


	13. Chapter 13

Rebuilt Anew 2.3

Asynca

* * *

While we were searching the perimeter, a guttural, rumbling noise took us both by surprise.

Amanda looked particularly alarmed, turning sharply towards the sound. It originated from within the waterfall, and after what had just happened it didn't take Einstein to figure out the source. "We've got to get out of here," she said, fingering the stone at her throat nervously.

I cast my eyes about the area; as before, it seemed to be sealed. "Well, your guess is as good as mine."

"We could say the runes again to get to the level below," Amanda suggested. I turned to look pointedly at her, the bloodstained coat pressed against the back of my head. She scowled. "It was just a suggestion."

A thought occurred to me, and I let the coat fall from my head. "Actually, Amanda, you're right!" I realised, ignoring my vertigo and turning back towards the Eitr.

While I was jogging awkwardly back towards it, I heard Amanda call out in disbelief, "Lara, what are you doing? Stop!"

As I approached the Eitr, a huge Yeti-like creature just like I fondly remembered from my previous underground expeditions lumbered forward through waterfall. It paused to consider me and then bellowed, shaking my ribcage and causing my already pounding head to hum. Deep shadows forming on the ground around me meant that Amanda had started to summon her power, so before she was able to round me to get a clear line of fire, I threw out an arm.

"_Ohk Eshivar_!"

All focus faded from the creature's eyes, and its body relaxed, silent.

I could hear Amanda panting behind me; the bright colours faded, leaving the Eitr to light the room.

I looked up at the waterfall, and gestured towards it. "Close that turntable," I instructed the creature.

It obediently turned, reaching up with its oversized arms far beyond a height I had access to. Then, easily, it twisted the mechanism. The Eitr stopped running, and the runes that had been lit by its eerie glow fell dark. Behind the waterfall was a small area filled with half-decomposed cadavers, now forever inanimate. A cursory glance through the crawlspace made me think we probably could enter the room.

Amanda had come up beside me. "_Ohk Eshivar_," she hurriedly told the creature. "Destroy yourself."

Without waiting a single moment, the creature promptly exploded, showering us both in patchy flesh, cloth and drops of Eitr. My heart leapt from the shock, and my growing headache pulsed with each beat. I held my hand up and examined a small dot of burnt skin where the Eitr had touched me; I had already figured that it would be dangerous to touch the fluid, but this was the first evidence I had that my suspicions were warranted.

While I was examining the burn, Amanda pushed the coat back against my head, roughly enough to hurt a little. "_Ohk Eshivar_," she directed to me as if I were a thrall. Underneath her disgust there was some faint level of humour. "Stop actually _trying_ to get yourself killed."

I grinned briefly at her. "Ordering a thrall around isn't going to kill me," I pointed out.

"At this point, Lara, a gentle breeze would probably kill you." She took the coat from my head and showed me the amount of blood on it before replacing it. "I'm not even sure exactly how you're still upright, let alone conscious."

To be fair, I did feel quite odd: I was horribly light-headed and my pulse was throbbing painfully in my temples. Additionally, my arms and shoulders were still aching and, while I was thinking about it, I noticed my palms were still stinging. I could also hazard a guess at how frightful I must have looked. None of that was particularly concerning to me, however, as I'd lived through much worse on a number of occasions. Amanda didn't know that, of course, so I made her aware of it. "I've been doing this all my life, you know."

Unfortunately, I was looking at my feet as I spoke, and as soon as the words left my mouth I realised I was pitching forward. Amanda took my shoulders to right me, raising a single eyebrow. "I can't carry you," she said bluntly. "Some of us have more important things to do with our time than lift barbells."

I gestured to the blood seeping out of the back of my head. "Well, just wait a little and I'll be an awful lot lighter."

She scoffed, and in two strides she was behind me, unzipping my backpack. I felt her rummaging around inside, and then the zipper closed again. "Sit down, before you fall over," she ordered me, and pushed on my shoulders. I allowed myself to be forced into a kneeling position. She snatched her coat from me and dropped it on the ground. A sharp stinging on the back of my head startled me, and I tried to pull away.

"Sit still," she snapped. "Or I'm going to get this everywhere." I smelt the pungent, offensive aroma of the antibacterial fluid I always used.

She was dressing my wound, I realised with some amusement. I felt like I was five years old again, when Mother used to put Bandaids on my scraped knees. The memory caused my stomach to knot a little; I pushed it out of my mind. The last thing I wanted to do in front of Amanda was show any sort of emotion. She would never let me forget it.

There was a period of silence during which all the activity behind me stopped. "Do you know what you're doing?" I prompted her, perhaps a little patronisingly.

There was more silence, and then suddenly Amanda announced, "That's it, I can't do this!"

"Yes," I turned my head towards her, "it's pretty complicated, wrapping a bandage around someone's head."

Amanda was crouching behind me, trying to push surgical thread through the eye of a needle and looking extremely frustrated. She'd also touched her face at some point, because there was a bloodied handprint on her cheek. I laughed at how comical she looked, but stopped very abruptly as the effort hurt my head, which in turn made her smirk at me.

For a moment we regarded each other, and I felt a tremendous surge of affection for her. _This_ was the Amanda I remembered and had dearly missed after the accident in Bolivia. I wanted to hug her, but I knew that would be a terribly bad idea for more than one reason.

She ended the moment by thrusting the needle and thread at me and throwing her hands in the air with defeat. "You do it," she insisted, offering as a very flimsy excuse, "it's too goddamn dark in here, I can't see a thing."

I took them from her and put them back in the medical kit, retrieving a wad of gauze and a stretch bandage, which I held at her. "I know you'd just love the opportunity to stab holes in me," I told her, "but in this case a bandage will do the trick."

She hesitated, not making eye contact with me as she accepted the items. After what had just passed between us, it seemed deliberately cold. I didn't ask her about it, however. I just knelt obediently while she wrapped the bandage around my head.


	14. Chapter 14

Rebuilt Anew 2. 4

Asynca

* * *

Past the piles of surprisingly sterile-smelling cadavers there was a small alcove that was only accessible through a crawlspace. Despite the fact I doubted anywhere inside the entrance to Helheim was _actually_ safe, there was a claustrophobia about the space that put me at ease. Whilst I felt like we should probably be pressing on to prevent my Doppelgänger from getting too much of a head start on us, it was a stupid idea to be running around while I was waiting for my head to stop bleeding. Additionally, I figured I should probably start water loading to replace the volume of blood I'd lost.

I sat myself down carefully against the short wall, drinking deeply from my canteen and offering it to Amanda. She didn't notice, however, because she was too busy fussing over the stains on her coat. "It's ruined," she declared finally, and threw it against the far wall. "You're still bleeding anyway, and now I'm going to freeze."

I put the canteen away, tentatively touching the bandage over the wound. My fingertips were dry for now. I looked from my hands to Amanda's arms, which were still covered in goose bumps. Well, she'd make the sacrifice for me, I figured. Trying to avoid jarring my arms yet again, I removed my backpack, and unzipped my parka.

Amanda watched me. "What are you doing?"

Shrugging it off, I held it toward her. "Here." From the way she looked at it, you would have thought it was coated in poison. I shook it at her. "Amanda, take the parka and put it on."

She received it from me somewhat reluctantly. "Shouldn't you be trying to keep warm?"

I looked down at my arms. "My drysuit's good to minus five, I expect I'll be fine."

She pressed her lips together, and slipped it on and zipped it up.

"Better?" I asked her dryly.

She didn't reply, crossing her arms.

Bloody ungrateful, I thought. I'd at least thanked her for hers. While I was reflecting on her reaction, I figured I'd take a second look at those runes. I unhooked the handycam from my belt, flipped it open, and watched the footage I'd taken of the iron plate. As the film ran over the separate runes I read them, spotting familiar words like 'Odin' and 'Ohk'. Many of the runes were similar to the more recent Germanic system I was familiar with, and the more I watched the footage, the more I was able to spot the similarities between them. The language was very similar, and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for me to learn it, I decided.

"It's odd that there are two writing systems still in use at the same time," I observed, turning off the camera. "It normally takes hundreds of years for an alphabet to evolve."

Amanda shrugged. She was absently picking at what I assumed was a small bloodstain on my parka as she thought. "Rituals are normally conducted using more traditional language. I don't think it's surprising at all they use the old alphabet for divination."

I considered what she said. I had to concede I'd experienced that myself during the rare occasions I'd not managed to avoid going to church. "What are they called, then, these runes that effect change?"

Amanda flashed a lopsided smile at her crossed legs. "As far as I know they don't really have a name. I've only ever read them described as 'Odin's Runes of Divination'."

"That's rather awkward. Could we call them, 'Power Runes', or something of the sort?"

She frowned and then turned a squint on me. "'We call them'? You'd better not be expecting to take credit for these. Without me, you'd still be stuck in that room."

"Without me, you'd be down there—" I gestured below, "—in Jörmungandr's Poison," I pointed out. "And you can't publish your own research papers from the grave, as far as I'm aware."

"Without you I wouldn't have fallen anyway! I would have walked down here and been peacefully testing out the Runes."

"You wouldn't even have _had _the Thrall Stone if my father hadn't found it, and I hadn't discovered where he'd hidden it under the manor. You stole it from me!" I neglected to mention that I wouldn't have even found the hiding place if Amanda hadn't ordered my Doppelgänger to blow up the centre of my house. Regardless, I could feel my pulse climb at her ire, and again, with each beat, it made my head pound. I didn't even care about who published what, I hadn't published anything in years and I didn't care to. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what was making me so angry.

She looked absolutely scandalised that I'd even suggest that the stone wasn't her property; it was infuriating. "You weren't going to do anything with it!" she accused me, leaning aggressively inward and shouting in a shrill voice that strained my ears. "You would've just put it in a glass case hidden it in some secret compartment somewhere and left it to gather dust!"

"You think I should have put it on a pendant around my neck, then, and used it to attack my friends?"

The glare she directed at me was nothing short of murderous. I don't believe I'd ever felt someone look at me with so much pure hatred. "The Wraith Stone saved my life, Lara," she put a hand to her neck and curled her fingers around it, "unlike my '_friends'._" She leant heavily on the word in a way that contradicted it.

I opened my mouth to blast her and then closed it again. "I'm not going to discuss this again, Amanda. How many times do I need to say I tried as hard as I could? I saw rubble fall on you, I saw you drown. I had no reason to believe you were alive. End of story!"

She leant back against the wall, resigned. "Of your story, maybe," she muttered sullenly.

My head was throbbing like one giant artery. There weren't enough bullets in the world, I felt at that moment. I was so angry, I could have emptied all my magazines into her chest and then kicked her body. I took a deep breath to calm myself before I spoke. "What do you want, exactly? You want to know how many days, hours, minutes I spent wondering if there was something else I could have done to save you? You want me to do an audit of how my life changed after you 'died'?" I shifted to face her. She was staring mutely ahead at the wall, pretending I wasn't yelling at her. "Are you going to keep robbing my house and stalking me until you've punished me enough?"

My voice echoed off the walls in the small alcove. As the ring faded, a silence hung between us.

"I didn't take the stone to punish you," she said, much more subduedly that I had expected her to.

"You bloody well did!" I contradicted her immediately. "Maybe it gives you some sick pleasure to see _me_ suffer, but blowing up my house? Killing Alister?"

"...are unrelated to how much I've wanted to burn you alive, then and now!" She looked towards me, a sneer twisting her mouth. After a moment of coldly watching me, she shook her head. "It's pointless. You'll never understand."

"Not if you don't explain it to me, I won't!" I threw my hands toward the low ceiling in defeat. "Amanda, we were talking about runes, and now somehow I'm evil incarnate for not being able to save you, again. Clearly I'm missing something!"

She laughed once, humourlessly. "You are," she told me conclusively but, to my exasperation, she didn't elaborate. "'Power Runes' is okay, and you're bleeding again."

I groaned, patting my bandage; she was right.

I tended to my head while Amanda turned onto her side – away from me – and feigned taking a nap.


	15. Chapter 15

Rebuilt Anew 2.5

Asynca

* * *

I must have fallen asleep soon after Amanda turned over, because when I woke up I was lying on the ground and it felt like I had every pebble in Helheim imbedded in my side. Fortunately, my head had quietened down and my arms felt markedly less weak. They hurt, but achy was far easier to deal with than shaky. I pressed the tape on my hands; lack of tenderness meant it wasn't infected yet. My recovery put me in a rather cheerful mood.

Amanda wasn't being such a stick-in-the-mud either. While I was busy strapping on all my gear, she even handed me my backpack, although she was somewhat sullen about it.

To pre-emptively head off any future arguments about the matter, I said to her, "You can publish the paper. I hate all that finicky referencing anyway."

She nodded vaguely, not making eye-contact with me. Since that was about as close to an apology Amanda would ever get, I accepted it as such and then proceeded to double-check the ground for anything that might have fallen out of my pouches onto it.

Amanda arched her back to stretch it; I heard something crack inside her spine. She groaned. "You remember Daishi Chen?" She was referring to a dig we'd done together in China in the first year of our post-grad. The whole affair was a horrible disaster from beginning to end. I nodded, and she explained, "I think it's the only time I've hurt _more_." She'd slipped in the silt and sprained her ankle, I recalled, and had spent the whole time hobbling around on makeshift crutches, completely soaked by the torrential rain. I specifically remembered two things about that expedition: the fact that I spent the entire time coated in thick mud and probably looking like something out of a horror movie, and the fact that halfway through the exploration, the river bank collapsed and took all our bags, tents and research equipment with it.

"At least we're dry this time," I commented, thinking particularly about the discomfort of wet socks for a week.

"Well, the mine's caved in now," she pointed out. "How do you think we're going to get out of here?" I remembered my previous long swim into Helheim without any fondness at all, so I didn't reply.

Kneeling, I bent forwards onto all-fours and crawled out of the alcove. Amanda followed me into the corpse-filled room, and, since it was clearly a dead end, we walked back into the main room. There was another waterfall at the far end; I supposed we should probably try that turntable for a way out. I pointed at it, and Amanda nodded.

On the long walk to the other side of the area, I ran over my other memories of the dig, pleased to not be arguing with her. Since we'd been the only two girls on that particular excursion, I was certain she must have had the same trouble I'd had with the horde of testosterone-filled men. "On the bright side, I don't have to wear two dark-coloured t-shirts to make sure I get any sort of useful conversation out of my dig partner," I grinned at her, and she didn't smile back. Given how amicable she'd been a second ago, it was odd to have that particular conversation end so abruptly.

Once we reached the waterfall, I had the same problem as the previous one: I couldn't reach the turntable. I rounded it to search for possible grapple-hooks, and found nothing. "I guess we wait for another thrall," I figured, and positioned myself directly in front of the Eitr so I could see anything that emerged from it.

A few minutes passed while we were waiting. I had begun to wonder if this waterfall even produced thrall, when Amanda said, "It would have been okay if our stuff hadn't washed away." She had obviously been thinking about Daishi Chen during the lapse in conversation.

I groaned. "Tell me about it. I had to share a tarp with Robert Lee while we were waiting for the rescue team."

"I remember," Amanda said quietly. After a moment she added, "I was so angry at him."

Well, that was unexpected. "Angry? I..." It dawned on me that by angry, Amanda meant jealous. "Oh. Oh!" I felt my stomach drop, and I turned towards her. "Amanda, if I'd known that you'd fancied him, I'd never have—"

She looked insulted. "_Robert Lee_? No way."

"Oh," I stared at her dumbly for a moment. "I don't really know why you're upset, then. He and I were never an item."

She waved her hand dismissively.

I wondered if she meant that she felt ostracised, because everyone had paired off aside from her. "Look, if you felt like we were leaving you out, then—"

Her grim laughter interrupted me. She turned sidelong and looked at me with disbelief. "Are you _really_ this stupid?"

I was frowning at her when she came at me. Ordinarily I would have been able to take her, but my head injury must have made my reflexes dull. She knocked the hand I raised between us away and jerked me inward with fingers behind my neck. It pulled sharply on my wound, and the pain immobilised me. While I was battling with stars twinkling in front of my face, I felt lips press firmly against mine. I opened my mouth to shout with surprise, and was shocked to feel the blade of a tongue. In my peripheral vision, I saw a hand move towards my waist, and I panicked. She's trying to distract me, I thought, but from what? Expecting to be stabbed at any second, I immediately threw her away from me and drew my pistols on her.

We were both panting. She went to reach towards her neck – where the Wraith Stone hung – and I advanced on her. "Don't you dare!"

Confusion flickered across her face. "_What?_"

"Whatever it is you're planning to do, just drop it!"

She looked at me like I'd grown an extra head.

I shook my guns at her. "Between you and my Doppelgänger, I'm _sick_ of being messed with!"

Amanda put her hands to her temples, and then stared incredulously at me. "What are you on, seriously? I didn't attack you!" Then, in a gesture that surprised me, she dropped her arms and turned her back on me. Adrenaline level high, I contemplated pulling the trigger for a couple of seconds. However, the way she was standing – with a bowed head and fists tacitly clenched – wasn't a particularly threatening position, so I let my guns fall. While I watched her, completely lost, I remembered as my treacherously belated logic kicked in that Amanda had always been a particularly shocking liar.

I felt the colour drain from my face.

I was at a loss for words, but I forced something out of my mouth. "God." She had just _kissed_ me? Where on earth did _that_ come from?

She laughed once. "Maybe _I'm_ the idiot."

With nauseating clarity, I pieced together every piece of information that hadn't made sense about Amanda since I'd met her. Randomly sullen, angry at me for seemingly no reason, a sense of betrayal I'd considered at the time to be dramatically inflated compared to my alleged crime... God, and the _stalking. _And what had I attributed it to? A girlish admiration then, and some stone around her neck now? I felt sick to my stomach. How much pain would someone like the Amanda Evert I'd once known have to go through to turn into the woman in front of me?

I wanted to say something reassuring; she looked really upset. The trouble is, I had no idea what I could offer that could possibly be of any comfort.

After a long period of silence, she shrugged. "It doesn't matter. Just forget it ever happened."

I pressed my lips together. It all seemed surreal, I almost expected to be shaken awake at any point. "You never said anything," I attempted.

"And it should have just stayed that way."

Another familiar voice answered. "If it helps, I brought you a consolation prize," my Doppelgänger said neutrally, walking into the light cradling an acid-burnt body I recognized as one of Amanda's mercenaries. I shouted and jumped backwards, raising my pistols at her. She completely ignored them, dumping the corpse at my feet. The whole exchange had the air of a kitten presenting its owner with its first dead bird.

Amanda looked from the semi-dissolved corpse of one of her henchmen to my Doppelgänger, mute with shock. Her hand was already glowing.

Before she committed to blasting my Doppelgänger, however, a set of other figures hobbled out of the waterfall. Amanda's other mercenaries had taken on a very pallid, veiny hue, complete with glowing eyes and visibly fatal injuries that didn't seem to be bothering them in the slightest. Unfortunately, they were all still heavily armed.

"You look like you could use a stiff drink," one of them told me casually, gesturing at my bandaged skull. His voice had the same ethereal echo as that of my Doppelgänger. "Or something stiff, anyway."

The whole lot of them cackled. I looked from my Doppelgänger to the laughing mercenaries and finally to the speaker, and shot him in the face.


	16. Chapter 16

Rebuilt Anew 2.6

Asynca

* * *

Before I'd squeezed the trigger a second time, my Doppelgänger had darted over and pushed the nose of my gun toward the ground. I jumped backwards and pointed both my pistols at her, instead. "You're next," I told her, "unless you tell me what's going on."

She looked sideways at the mercenary I had shot. He was tentatively touching the hole in his face with a sort of sulkiness. The rest of the men were still laughing as if the whole affair was a hilarious joke, and one of the others nodded at me. "Don't worry," he said, "Mick's used to being shot down by women."

Amanda had recovered. "_Ohk Eshivar_!" she directed them. They immediately stopped laughing and stood at attention, eyes unfocused. "Kill Lara's Doppelgän—"

My Doppelgänger's reflexes were faster. "_Ohk Eshivar_," she quickly said. Again, they reset.

I raised my eyebrows. "You can say it?" I wondered aloud.

My Doppelgänger looked back to me. "Of course," she told me. "You freed me. It allows me to act just as you." She tilted her head at me. "I find it somewhat surprising I need to constantly rehash that."

A second later, I found myself several metres beside of where I thought I was; it took me a moment to realise that I had hands on my waist and that a massive fireball had just hurtled past me. I pieced the scene together: Amanda had tried to blast the Doppelgänger but also would have hit me, and my Doppelgänger had quickly moved me out of the way. Amanda wound up again. This time my Doppelgänger released me, and in a blur of speed had pinned Amanda's arms behind her back with one hand, and had the other over her mouth. Although it was clear that she wasn't going to be able to escape, Amanda struggled probably as a matter of principle.

Ignoring the extremely odd situation she was in the middle of, my Doppelgänger nodded at the body she'd dropped in front of me not a minute ago. "I thought you might be curious to try it yourself."

Despite just having been rescued by her, I pointed a gun at her just in case. "It?"

"The 'Thrall Stone', I believe I've heard you refer to it." She inclined her head towards the squirming woman in her arms, and addressed Amanda. "I'm not going to hurt you," she told her, "I'd appreciate if you'd stop your feeble attempts to kill me." She took her hand off Amanda's mouth experimentally.

"_Okheshiv—_"

The Doppelgänger muzzled her quickly, and then looked at me. "Please tell her I'm not dangerous."

"You _are _dangerous." I watched her through the target pin on the top of my pistol. Her eyebrows lowered momentarily, as if she couldn't make sense of my reaction. I clarified my position. "I don't trust you. There are a lot of things about you that don't make sense."

Her eyes glazed slightly. "Yes, there are." There was an air of wistfulness about her.

"That!" I waved my pistol at her. "Stop it! Stop trying to make me feel sorry for you!"

She narrowed her eyes at me. Then, within the space of a millisecond, she had released Amanda, and was behind one of the mercenaries and had torn his neck clean from his shoulders. Before his bloodless body hit the ground, she had already zipped back behind Amanda and restrained her again. Amanda had only had the opportunity to take a quick breath during the whole exercise, and I couldn't have even pulled the trigger in the time it had taken her to dismember him.

"In logic you would feel comfortable with, Lara," she said clearly. "I would find it an exceptionally quick and easy endeavour to kill you, as you just witnessed. I have no use for you, as there is nothing you are capable of that I am not capable of doing more efficiently."

I lined up the target pin on her face; the first time I'd met my Doppelgänger, she had seemed to rather enjoy pretending to be my reflection. "Maybe you get some sort of sick pleasure out of manipulating me."

Her expression didn't alter. "Just like Amanda?"

I scowled at her. I had been wrong about that, but it didn't necessarily mean I was wrong about her. "Why did you lure me out of my house at exactly the same time Amanda stole my Thrall Stone, then?"

"Just because the two events happened simultaneously, it doesn't mean there is a relationship implicit between them." She watched me. "Your choice of words is incorrect. I didn't 'lure' you out. You followed me. I was very explicit that if you were to wait, I would return."

"Maybe you wanted to make sure Amanda brought the stone here," I attempted.

"While your constant paranoia is somewhat endearing," she said by way of reply. "Not everyone wants to kill you."

"Well, an awful lot of them do."

Rather than continuing the argument, my Doppelgänger looked down at Amanda. "You're too slow to command the men, and it's pointless to waste your powers attacking me," she warned, and then released her. Amanda swallowed, eyes fixed at the decapitated body.

Once again behaving as if I didn't have two guns pointed at her, the Doppelgänger approached me casually, reaching behind her into her belt. I tightened my grip on my pistols. However, when she held her hand out towards me, it contained the stolen Thrall Stone. "As you can see and have previously witnessed, there is no force preventing me from holding or using the stone. If I had simply wanted to take the stone, you never would have known it was missing until you were to look for it." She held it out toward me, inviting me to take it from her.

Unfortunately, however, to accept the Thrall Stone, I had to put at least one of my pistols away. I holstered them both, squinting at her. Although I felt safer with them drawn, I had to concede that she was right: I'd never be able to make a bullet hit her.

My Doppelgänger placed the stone in my outstretched hand. "Eitr is all that is required to animate the dead. However, this stone is required to make them sentient, as I am."

I looked down at the stone, which was glowing a familiar blue. It was interesting to note that holding the stone also made my gauntlets and belt glow. I looked up at my Doppelgänger, who was watching me placidly. I remembered what my father had written about the stone being used to create thrall. "This created you?"

She shook her head. "Natla created me. But it was a similar process." She indicated the corpse a short distance from me. "Try it. I know you're curious."

I was, actually. But there seemed to be something sinister about reanimating and controlling the dead; the idea left a bad taste in my mouth. A memory of my mother's half-eaten face was etched in detail into my brain. Maybe if I had never seen her reanimated, I'd have jumped at the opportunity to use the stone on the man's body.

Amanda, on the other hand, was trying to edge very surreptitiously around so she could see past my Doppelgänger to me. I knew she'd come to Helheim specifically to try exactly this. So, without giving the matter too much further thought, I held the stone out toward her.

Her face lit up momentarily, and then closed over itself in suspicion. "Why are you letting _me_ do it?"

I shrugged. "Take it."

My Doppelgänger looked at me with interest. "There are some differences between us, it seems." I raised my eyebrows at her, and she explained, "I'd never have followed someone hundreds of kilometres to take something from them only to immediately return it." I think she may have been making fun of me, but due to her complete lack of facial expression I was unable to tell.

Amanda and I shared a look; I couldn't explain why I now trusted Amanda, so I didn't. She strode quickly forward and snatched it from me, as if she was afraid the Doppelgänger might prevent her from taking it. My Doppelgänger didn't move to stop her, although her eyes were following Amanda's progress.

I ran my own eyes over my Doppelgänger while Amanda was busy turning the stone over in her hands. "Are you about what you say you are?" I asked her quietly. "Really?"

She nodded once, a very slight smile on her face. I watched her closely, as if I had any capacity to read her. Her face was a completely closed book.

While our eyes were still locked, my Doppelgänger called to Amanda, "You will need to place the cadaver into the Eitr first." I wondered how she was able to tell Amanda was struggling to figure out the stone without looking at her.

Amanda looked towards my Doppelgänger, and back to the corpse. Rather than pick it up the conventional way, she raised her arms and caused it to glow orange. With a gesture, she flung in into the shallow drop pool of the waterfall. As Amanda approached the glowing liquid, the Thrall Stone lifted from her hands and hovered mid-air. When she held her hands out toward it, it began to radiate like a small blue sun. I held a forearm up to shield my eyes. When I peaked above it, I saw the body suspended above the waterfall, arms outstretched, head tilted back with light pouring out of its eyes and mouth. Amanda had her fingers curled like claws towards the stone, and was moving the light around it like a rotator cuff. I wanted to watch the process more closely, but the light was burning my retinas.

After several seconds the light faded, and I dropped my arm. The corpse had fallen out of the air, and was crawling across the ground to Amanda. She looked a little spooked by it, but remained in place. When it reached her, it placed its forehead on her boot. "Mistress..." it whispered.

The Doppelgänger looked extremely amused, and turned from me to watch the exchange. "You don't need to program them to be subservient," she told Amanda. "They are already required to obey you."

Amanda looked down appraisingly at the grovelling mercenary. "Yes, but isn't it more fun if they _want_ to serve you?"

I screwed up my face in disgust, glad of my decision to not be involved. "You _created_ that?"

Amanda looked defensive. "There weren't many options!" She sounded like she was describing a computer program.

The Doppelgänger smirked. "There are infinite options."

Amanda jabbed an index finger at the Doppelgänger. "You be quiet!"

My Doppelgänger inclined her head. "I'm your servant no longer, Amanda," she reminded her. "My own grovelling before you is fortunately complete."

I felt very uneasy about the idea of a clone of myself crawling around after Amanda; I wanted to know more about what Amanda had asked of her, but at the same time I remembered what Amanda had just confessed to me. All things considered, I wasn't particularly sure I wanted details of what had been ordered.

Amanda used the tip of her boot to push the mercenary away. "_Ohk Eshivar_, go join your idiot friends." She considered her work as he hurried to stand in line with the other men. "Actually, Natla was right." I raised an eyebrow at her, requesting clarification. "It's more fun when they _don't_ want to serve you." She and the Doppelgänger shared a look, which I tried very hard to avoid interpreting. Given what had probably happened between them, I found it very strange my Doppelgänger didn't have any desire to harm her. I certainly wouldn't have let the matter slide as she clearly had.

I considered the mercenaries all lined up like toy soldiers. "So, what happens now?" I asked Amanda. I made a 'give me' motion with my hand, and accepted the Thrall Stone as she passed it back to me. "You've done what you came here to do, I have my artefact. Can we go home?"

The Doppelgänger turned back to me with surprise, but said nothing.

I put my hands on my hips. "What?" I demanded.

She shook her head innocently.

Amanda had strolled over to her vacant mercenaries. She walked along the line of them, carefully examining each one. "There's one more_ dear friend_ I'd like to pay a visit to," she said finally.


	17. Chapter 17

Rebuild Anew 2.7

Asynca

* * *

Trying to descend with the seven mercenaries proved considerably tiresome. It wasn't that death had rendered them less limber – the opposite, I noticed – but that the lot of them were _still _the most annoying bunch of pricks I'd ever had the misfortune of meeting.

"Hey, boys, watch this!" One of them announced as if to illustrate my point, standing on the edge of an opening. Once he had everyone's attention, he tipped forwards in a crucifix position, and disappeared. There was a thump below, and laughter. I lowered myself over the edge, spotting the man lying on the stone on his stomach just as he'd landed. When he went to get up, his spine bent in a very unnatural position. It made my stomach churn, but the other mercenaries thought it was hilarious. One by one they all took turns jumping off the ledge in different positions, trying to outdo each other with sickening injuries.

The most frustrating part of the exercise was that after a few minutes of lying on the ground, they would glow, reassemble, and repeat their acrobatics on subsequent ledges.

Every time I walked past a crumpled corpse I was about two seconds away from jumping on it to permanently kill it. However, Amanda seemed to have taken a rather intense scientific interest in them, and it seemed incredibly poor form to follow up a nasty rejection by breaking her new toys.

"Would you do that if I gave you a fatal injury?" I asked my Doppelgänger as I landed on the floor, gesturing to one of the men as he instantly healed.

She had been leaning boredly against a pillar a little ahead of us. "The point is moot, as you don't have the capacity to give me such an injury," she told me, a twinkle in her eye.

"_Fine,_ if you _somehow _sustained one, would you heal like that lot are?" Amanda turned her head slightly towards me as I spoke, interested in the answer. However, she clearly didn't want to appear interested or even acknowledge I existed, so she also barked a few orders to the men.

The Doppelgänger watched one of the mercenaries glow and heave himself up off the stone. "Theoretically," she answered at last. "I will admit I'm not generally given to throwing myself suicidally off high ledges."

"So you aren't anything like Lara, after all," Amanda commented drily as she lowered herself over the next ledge. Beside her, her men were jubilantly launching themselves down the chasm.

The Doppelgänger looked at me with amusement, her eyes moving between mine and the back of my head, which was still wrapped in gauze. My injury seemed to support the point Amanda had just made, so I qualified it. "That was an accident."

She nodded smugly and sauntered past me to the ledge, which she jumped neatly down. I went to follow her automatically, managing to stop myself before I became airborne. The distance to the ground would have been a good fifty metres, and the Doppelgänger had landed comfortably on her feet. _Flaws removed indeed_, I thought, looking around me for a safe path down. _Mortality must be one of those pesky flaws I have._

Amanda had found a pillar that had fallen against the wall at a steep slope and was trying to carefully pick her way down. At the bottom, the slave-like mercenary she had created was hovering nervously, looking up at her with concern.

I jumped forwards onto the pillar and slid down it, carefully avoiding collecting Amanda on the way down. However, watching me distracted her and she fell anyway, tumbling down the rest of it into the faux-loving arms of her mercenary. He looked absolutely delighted, but she smacked loosely at him and pulled violently out of his grasp, unleashing a tirade of sharp insults.

Our eyes met as she was brushing dust off her slacks and my parka, which she'd torn. The tear had been worth it for how entertaining it had been to watch her lose her composure, and I couldn't help but grin at her.

"I hate you," she told me venomously as she walked past me. Given the recent kiss, I didn't believe her at all. It was an interesting concept, though, all of this bubbling hatred suddenly cumulating into a kiss rather than a sharp smack to the head or the like.

I turned to watch her approach an archway not far away from where we were standing. She had legs that were much longer than mine; although it was possible they only looked that way because of her knee-high boots. _I suppose people consider that attractive_, I thought, appreciating the effort that must have gone into picking jeans that so carefully hugged the gentle curves of her waist and thighs. Looking at her that way made me feel uncomfortable, though, and I was fairly certain I wasn't going to be able to feel for her anything like what she had shown she felt for me. Although I had always considered myself to be straight – despite being labelled otherwise on a fairly frequent basis by a series of tabloid magazines – that wasn't the reason I was struggling. Actually not at all, I reflected, thinking of an embarrassing memory of a certain woman who'd shot me a challenging, predatory smile from a computer screen. It had made my breath catch in a way I would spend years rationalising. That particular event had led me to foster the belief that in extremely discrete circumstances, most women would find it possible to be a little flexible with definitions.

No, the reason the whole thing seemed impossible was because it was _Amanda _making the unspoken proposal: grumpy, moody, combative Amanda. She would be an absolute nightmare to date, and, despite our history, I didn't think I cared to bother even trying.

The Doppelgänger interrupted me from my internal monologue by nodding her head at the huge doorway that Amanda was examining. "I left her through there."


	18. Chapter 18

Rebuilt Anew 2.8

Asynca

_Woe! I repeat past folly,_

_butchering the Hávamál with clunky translation._

_My Linguistics professor turns slowly in her grave,_

_however, fortunately she hasn't risen and tried to kill me._

* * *

The chamber was set out like a throne room, with a huge recess where I assumed a throne would ordinarily sit. However, the area was now empty, and what once must have been the throne was now a pile of boulders and rubble on the floor at the far end of the hall.

As I passed through the doorway, I ran my fingers along the engravings; runes were only just visible beneath what appeared to be tide-swept stone. These particular runes were the newer alphabet with which I was already familiar, and I read aloud to myself:

"_Mortally wounded, I have I seen a man,  
by the words of an evil woman;  
her lying tongue had fled him of life,  
and all without justice." _

I frowned, whipping out my handycam and taking some footage. It seemed to have a concerning parallel with what Natla had exacted on my father, and I wanted to remember the exact words to consider them later.

Amanda looked back towards me, and spotted me reading the runes on the viewfinder panel. She wandered over towards me, looking up the whole length of the huge doorway and down the other side. "More of the _Hávamál,_" she explained, the runes making her forget to ignore me. "Much more of it, actually – although for some reason it's not in Elder Futhark. I think these may have been carved much later than this complex was built."

I smiled vaguely; once again I was struck by how easily those exact same words could have come out of Alister's mouth. Looking at the LCD screen, I read the stanza once again, and wondered if it were coincidence or serendipity that caused me to read that particular verse.

I shut the screen and stowed the camera as the mercenaries filed past me, the Doppelgänger at their rear.

Amanda wandered ahead, eyes cast upwards at the huge dome ceiling. I had followed her lead and also begun to explore when I heard her make a startled noise. Jogging over to where she was standing, I saw her eyes fixed on a point on the floor.

A withered hand protruded from underneath a pile of heavy rubble.

"Now that is one dead bitch," one of the mercenaries commented. Despite that assessment, however, they all pointed their rifles at it.

I thought of my father, and of the stanza I'd just read that mirrored the circumstances surrounding his death. "Looks like justice was served after all," I reflected.

Amanda didn't look entirely convinced. "Are we sure it's her?" She looked to the Doppelgänger, who nodded once. As Amanda looked back at the arm, I thought I may have seen something like sorrow flash briefly across her face. "I want to make sure," she said.

The Doppelgänger looked from the huge boulders covering the body to me, as if asking for permission. I frowned, and nodded. It only took my Doppelgänger a few seconds to move the rubble a few paces to the right of the body, revealing the mostly skeletal and acid-eaten corpse of the once Jacqueline Natla. She was face down, her head mercifully turned to the far wall to spare us her skinless face. Crumpled wings spread out either side of her, webbing torn and burnt.

I contemplated firing a bullet into her skull for good measure, but restrained myself. "Alright, I think we can all be quite certain that…"

The words died on my lips as I spotted my gauntlets glowing. I held the backs of my hands up to examine them, and then noticed my belt, which was also lit. Amanda was staring at my back. "Hold still," she told me shortly, and leant over to release the latches on my backpack.

Now freed from my bag the Thrall Stone flung forth like a magnet, nearly smacking in the tender back of my head. It lodged in the air above Natla's body and threw an intense light towards the lot of us. I shouted and threw my hands up to shield my eyes, as Amanda, eyes squinted shut, rushed forward and tried to pull the stone out of the air. Seeing her struggle, my Doppelgänger tried to help her, to no avail.

The body stirred.

"Stand back!" I yelled at them, and opened fire on the stone. I emptied the cartridges on both pistols, reloaded, and kept going. To the side of me I could hear a cascade of machinegun fire as the mercenaries followed my lead.

Eventually I had to concede that gunfire wasn't doing anything to stop the stone and whatever it was doing. "Stop!" I called to the men, who surprisingly followed my orders despite not having been commanded to do so.

The body had fortunately stopped moving, but the whole area around it was bathed in a sort of liquid light that was pouring forth from the Thrall Stone. It was so bright I could hardly make out details, but I recognized the orb of light surrounding the stone as what Amanda had been manipulating in order to create her servile mercenary. What made my heart pound was the fact that the orb appeared to be operating itself.

I pointed to it. "Amanda, look! Can you put your hand in there and shut it down, or something?"

Amanda stepped forward and reached towards the ball of light, touching her fingers on either side of it. Again, her eyes glazed as she stared into it, as if she were seeing something the rest of us were unable to. Her muscles were bunching, and I could see strain evident on her face, "I can't — oh, God…" she breathed.

"Well. Something like that," a sinuous voice answered.

Out of the pool of light stepped a surprisingly healthy version of Jacqueline Natla, glowing ethereally. It looked like something out of a nativity scene.

I stared dumbly at her, and looked down to her still-crumpled body just visible above the liquid light on the stone floor.

She glanced downward, kicking a broken wing with the tip of her toes. "Pity," she said dismissively. "I did always enjoy the convenience of flight."

The mercenaries all glanced at each other, and then proceeded to unleash a barrage of machinegun fire at her. She watched the bullets sail directly through her, leaving only small smoke trails where they touched her visage. A section of the far wall crumbled as the bullets ate through it. "Pleased to meet you, too," she told the mercenaries, and then addressed Amanda. "I see you've made some upgrades to your henchmen."

Amanda was frozen in place, her hands adhered to the ball of light around the stone. She made several attempts to free herself, and failed each time.

I fired at Natla, probably more out of frustration than any belief it would have an effect on her. "Can't I go anywhere without crossing paths with you?" I asked her viciously.

She leaned back on one hip, and raised an eyebrow. "You came directly here, and brought with you the instrument of my resurrection. That seems rather intentional to me." She looked towards the Doppelgänger, who was poised like a viper ready to strike. "Perhaps I have you to thank for that," she suggested. "The real Lara always had mummy issues. A trait you two share?" I assumed she was referring to herself at the Doppelgänger's mother.

"A significant part of me hopes that Amanda succeeds in determining how to resurrect you," the Doppelgänger said darkly.

I looked at her with alarm as Natla began to smile.

"…so that I can kill you in every single way I fantasised during my bondage."

Natla inclined her head in placid concession, and proceeded to stroll casually toward Amanda. "So, what will it be, Amanda? Am I to live once more?"

"In your dreams," Amanda spat, still unable to dislodge herself from the orb.

Natla chuckled once, patronisingly. I watched her through the target pin on my pistol, wishing it were possible for me to shoot her. "How is it possible to resurrect you, anyway?" I asked her loudly, interrupting the private address. "It's a _Thrall _Stone, not a crucifix."

"Your father gave it that name because he didn't understand what it was," she answered me, distaste and amusement both present in equal measure. "It unites soul with body. As Odin was mainly concerned with being able to control the many egotistical warriors he retrieved from the killing fields when it actually came to fighting in Ragnarök, I assume he made it deliberately easy to create subservient soldiers when you unite the two again. He even laboured to develop a process that rendered them able to heal themselves." I watched her walk a lazy circle around Amanda and the stone in question. "It's so user-friendly that any fool can raise a subservient warrior exactly the same as the person they were prior to death." She looked with pride at the Doppelgänger. "The real achievement, of course, is creating a creature that's entirely different than what it was originally made of." The Doppelgänger looked stricken as Natla continued, "Wouldn't you just love to know what rotting flesh I constructed you from? Which parts of which beast I used to expertly forge you?"

I fired a shot at her. "Enough!"

She hardly gave me a glance, looking back to Amanda. "We were quite a team, you and I."

"Until you tried to kill me," Amanda pointed out.

"There would have been a place for you at my side in the Seventh Age, Amanda." She shrugged casually. "You made a mistake by trying to stop me. You can atone for it by just giving that orb a little twist."

"Don't do it, Amanda!" I called, somewhat redundantly. Amanda looked back toward me.

A flash of recognition passed across Natla's face, and her smirk deepened. She locked eyes with me, and then addressed Amanda again. "You can have her, you know." My lips parted with surprise, but I was unable to interrupt her. "I would be content with any of these bodies," she gestured at the men, "but hers? Now there's some delicious irony."

"This body is already occupied, Natla!" I shouted, disgusted.

Natla ignored me, advancing on Amanda. "One bullet, Amanda." She murmured. "Order your men to kill her, and just twist that orb…" She placed her hand one hand on the top of the ball. "And you can have her, forever."

I squinted at her, my repulsion likely evident on my face. I couldn't make sense of it; Natla occupying _my _body, consenting to _Amanda_ doing as she wished? The suggestion seemed like some sort of teenage wet dream, and couldn't have been more foreign or more wrong to me. It was obviously a giant manipulation, and an incredibly horrible one to take advantage of the unfortunate situation Amanda found herself in with regards to me. "You actually think that's going to happen, Amanda? You think she's not going to just knock you down as soon as you give life back to her?"

Natla completely ignored me, intent on the woman in front of her. "Is she ever going to love you?" she asked, with faux-concern. "You think she's even capable of loving _anyone_, let alone someone like you?" I watched with horror as Amanda's expression melted from hatred to hurt. "Do you know how many of her ex lovers have ended up dead at her own hand?"

My breath caught in my throat. _Just one_, I thought, looking down at my hands as if I expected to see blood. Amanda caught site of my gesture, and swallowed.

"You know what I want, Amanda." A smile grew across Natla's face, and she casually laced her hands in front of her. "And I know what you want."

For a moment the room was silent except for the mercenaries shuffling uneasily back and forth behind me.

"Amanda, no," I whispered.

Amanda looked from me to Natla, and then her brow twisted. "When you made me that Doppelgänger, Natla," she finally said, each word weighted heavily with meaning. "It was clear to me that you had _no idea_ what I really want."

With that, she ripped her hands away from the orb. The sound of her crying out in pain was overlaid by Natla making one last attempt to launch herself towards Amanda, shrieking. The very second Amanda's hands were free, the light sucked back in on itself, throwing the room into half-darkness and sending the stone skittering across the floor. It stopped when it hit Natla's still, decomposing corpse.

Amanda staggered backwards, mute with horror as she held up the palms of her hands. They were weeping and red raw like meat: they'd nearly had the flesh seared off. She collapsed silently. I ran over to her, crouching down and taking her by the wrists to have a closer look at the damage. With one violent shove, she pushed me away from her. I fell backwards onto the stone, staring at her with astonishment.

"Do you know what you've done?" she hissed, and then managed to pull herself to stand again. She gestured at the men, her face white. "What are you all staring at? Move! Let's get out of here!"

My Doppelgänger and I looked at each other, and for once I was able to read her surprised expression.

I cast one last angry look at Natla's body as I collected the Thrall Stone and ran in pursuit of Amanda.


	19. Chapter 19

Rebuilt Anew 2.9

Asynca

* * *

Amanda hadn't managed to make it very far since she'd stormed out; the only way to escape was upward, and she wasn't doing any sort of climbing with those hands. She'd stopped at the based of the pillar I'd slid down earlier and was staring absently at it while her men stood behind her and whispered to each other.

"Amanda…" I began as I jogged up to her.

"Leave me alone."

She obviously wasn't particularly well-loved by her 'henchmen', as Natla had referred to them, because they snickered at her response. I turned and directed the men a rather heavy stare. While I understood how humiliating it must have been to have her subordinates witness what had just happened, she was being ridiculous if she thought I was going to leave her to fend for herself with her burnt palms and the athleticism of a sausage dog.

When the men refused to behave respectfully, I was left with no option. "_Okh Eshivar_," I told them, and left them standing vacantly at attention.

"Amanda, I was—"

"Are you deaf?" She feigned finding a foothold at the bottom of the pillar so as to avoid paying much attention to me. It was plain to both of us she wasn't going to be walking up the pillar, and I was finding her attempts to ignore me to be rather tiresome.

Understandable as it was, I always had little patience for temper tantrums. "Oh, stop it." _That_ made her look at me. "Don't bother with anything Natla said, you know what she's like."

Amanda took a long, slow breath and then exhaled at length. "It wouldn't have been as bad if it wasn't all completely true," she said quietly, and looked back at the base of the pillar.

I winced, thinking on what Natla had suggested about me being incapable of loving anyone. "If you're trusting Natla's character assessment of me, don't forget she's underestimated me. Twice." I slowly approached her. "Three times if you count my Doppelgänger's judgment as representative of…" Now that I was closer to her, I was able to see beads of sweat on her upper lip and forehead, and just how horribly pale she was. "God, Amanda, you look terrible!"

"Gee, thanks," she said flatly, but there was a quiver in her voice.

"Here," I said, reaching behind me and retrieving my medical kit. I gestured at her to give me her hands as I unzipped the package. This time, she obediently held them out towards me, although she had turned her head in a way that had her fringe sitting over her eyes. I tapped on my LED, and had a close look at the damage. On her palms the burn was so intense that some of her skin was sloughing away, and they were both weeping. I could only guess what sort of pain she was in, and trying not to display.

I retrieved the antibacterial fluid and warned her, "This is going to really hurt." She nodded stiffly, and managed to remain stoically silent while I drenched her hands in it. I then took out a sheet of gauze, tore it in half, and doused it with water from my canteen. She flinched when I lay the dressing over each hand; I could feel the muscles in her arms shaking. I fussed over bandaging the gauze to her hands until I was confident the dressings wouldn't slip.

When I'd finished, I held her new mittens at arms' length to consider my work. It was at that point that I noticed she'd been crying.

I let her wrists drop, staring at her. She shook her head to discourage me from commenting on it, and tried to wipe her cheeks on the sleave of the parka.

"I have paracetamol…" I offered, although I suspected her tears had nothing to do with her hands or the pain.

"Lara, a full bottle of vodka wouldn't solve my problems right now," she interrupted me. After a moment of thought she laughed once, starkly. "Or maybe it would." Turning, she sat on the edge of the sloping pillar, looking at the bandage mittens covering her hands. "I don't know why I thought I could get up this without your help," she admitted. "Look at me, what's the point?"

I narrowed my eyes; I had a feeling her defeatism had to do with more than just her injury.

To be perfectly honest, though, I certainly wasn't looking forward to the prospect of hauling her hundreds of metres up a wire on my back again. Fortunately, we had company now so perhaps there were more options. Her men might be able to carry her, I thought. Or my Doppelgänger would probably assist if I asked her nicely, since she'd been very obliging about using her strength to help me so far. _That's a thought, actually_, I realised. I had assumed she'd been following me as I chased after Amanda, but now she was nowhere to be seen.

I opted to reassure Amanda first, however, as I felt that perhaps she wasn't looking for a solution so much as comfort. I sat down beside her; the slope was such that our hips touched. "What's the point of getting out of here, you mean?" She gave me a loose shrug instead of answering. I watched her for a few moments. "Things can't be that bad."

Exhaling, she conceded, "They aren't, I'm just..." She made a frustrated noise. "God, she made me sound so goddamn pathetic."

I scoffed. "I think Natla's of the general opinion that all mortals are pathetic. I wouldn't take it personally."

"It's not her opinion I care about," she said neutrally.

It was clear what her implication was, and it was such an odd suggestion I laughed. "Amanda, for the last few months you've either been trying to kill me or committing felonies against me. Are you sure you really care if I think you're pathetic or not?"

She smiled wryly. "Strange, huh?"

I thought about a boy in my final year of prep school who had launched a campaign of painfully flicking my bra strap all year before finally asking me to the school dance, and decided her behaviour wasn't all that outlandish. However, I didn't think sitting on Amanda's back and filling her mouth full of sand was the appropriate reply I'd considered it to be back then. Actually, for once I wasn't angry at all at her for all the horrible things she'd done. My Doppelgänger had been right: Amanda was perfectly capable of punishing herself, she certainly didn't need my help.

"Well, you can rest assured I don't think you're pathetic," I told her at last. "Although, there's still a pretty good chance at some point I will hit you." When her desolation faded into a smirk, I realised I may have chosen the wrong word. My cheeks flushed. "I meant that in the British sense of 'hit', not whatever you thought I meant!"

Amanda raised her eyebrows at me. "You know, I've been living in the UK long enough to not even have thought you meant anything other than attacking me." She looked a little entertained. "It's interesting it occurred to you."

I put my hands up to my suddenly hot cheeks. "Don't read into it," I warned her defensively. "It _hasn't_ occurred to me." Unfortunately, as a result of protesting the point, it did occur to me. Especially given fact that her cleavage was spilling out of the gap created when she'd half-unzipped the parka. I'd only glanced at it for a millisecond, but when I locked eyes with her it was clear she'd seen where mine had been.

"Knock it off!" I told her, moving to stand up.

She barred my way by pressing her wrist into my knee. "Lara, I'm not doing anything." She was smiling ear-to-ear for once.

"Except preventing me from getting up!" I went to push her hand off my knee, but stopped short as I remembered they were bandaged. If I wanted to move her hand, I would need to touch her arm, and any touch now would be far more significant than it should be. I then realised the whole left side of my body was pressed against hers. There was so much blood rushing to my head that if my face got any redder, there was a good chance my wound would start bleeding again. "A minute ago you sounded almost suicidal and now you're..." I opted to be more careful with my word selection this time, "well, you're certainly not upset anymore, so I think we'd best press on."

She removed her hand, but the smile was still on her face. I'll admit part of me did want to slap it off, but more of me was happy that she'd stopped being so miserable. However, there was certainly no way on earth I'd strap Amanda on my back again after what had just happened. We'd both fall to our deaths. "I'll ask my Doppelgänger if she'll carry you up," I told her, and held my taped hands up as a passable excuse. Amanda didn't need to know my blisters weren't hurting at all.

My Doppelgänger chose that exact second to wander out of the shadows, embarrassingly revealing she would have seen the whole exchange. She looked appraisingly at the pillar, and then at the far end of the lower floor. "It would be easier for me to clear the collapsed corridor," she suggested, nodding toward it.

That idea hadn't even occurred to me, but it was instantly appealing: if we took the way I'd come in previously, I would know where I was going. I stood up to head toward it.

"May I look after the Thrall Stone?"

As soon as my Doppelgänger had made that request, it must have been clear to her how awkward and out of place it sounded, because she continued, "I think it's safer with me."

I stopped and turned toward her, forgetting the whole uncomfortable conversation with Amanda. "Why?" I watched her closely as I waited for her reply.

She was deliberately trying to appear disinterested. "In case you lose control of it again," she said casually. "I believe I am better equipped to hold it in place and prevent another accident."

Amanda had stood and apparently shared my concern about why it was suddenly so important the Thrall Stone be in the Doppelgänger's care. "Why would there be another 'accident'?"

I ran over the possibilities in my mind: the Thrall Stone became active when exposed to a corpse drenched in Eitr, as Natla's had been, and as the servile mercenary's had been. If the Doppelgänger was concerned about the stone becoming active, she must be concerned about another corpse in the vicinity that might wake the stone. If the corridor Amanda had successfully collapsed was just across the room, then that meant... All the colour drained from my face as I remembered the events that had taken place directly prior to Amanda collapsing the corridor last time we'd been in Helheim.

I was appalled that I hadn't considered the possibility earlier. I had the Thrall Stone, and my mother's corpse would be a short distance from where we were standing, obscured by Eitr.


	20. Chapter 20

Rebuilt Anew 2.10

Asynca

* * *

I could vividly recall the events last time I'd stood there, staring across the glowing chasm to the breached gates of Helheim. The area wasn't exactly as I remembered it; it would have flooded with Eitr soon after Amanda and I had escaped last time, and as a result debris now littered the floor of the chamber.

Taking the Thrall Stone from my backpack and holding it in both hands, I ran my eyes over the glowing text.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and nearly shrugged it off, thinking it was my Doppelgänger. However, when I half turned my head to warn her away, I spied blond hair and a concerned expression.

"Are you going to try and stop me?" I challenged her, though quite half-heartedly.

She pressed her lips together, carefully considering her response. "I saw what happened last time," she confessed. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Of course I wasn't, but I didn't say so. I looked down at the stone in my hands. "Last time she was just a mindless thrall," I recounted, thinking of the lopsided gait at which she'd attempted to attack me. "This time, I have the stone. Maybe…" The Doppelgänger was still standing some distance away from me. "If it's possible for this," I indicated the stone, "to make her," I nodded at my Doppelgänger, "then it's possible for me to use it to revive my mother."

My Doppelgänger watched me intently. "Lara, I was created by a goddess," she said finally. "A being who has been perfecting the creation of doppelgängers since Atlantis." She approached me, and held out a pale, translucent arm next to mine. Beside my tanned wrist, hers looked uncannily white and filled with throbbing veins. "Despite that, I am still imperfect."

I lowered my arm. "I have to try this," I said definitively. "If I don't, I'm always going to wonder."

A shadow fell over my Doppelgänger's face, and she moved back towards the corridor, eyes veiled.

I walked forward away from them both, towards the chasm. As I approached the edge, I could feel the stone awaken in my hands, humming soundlessly. When I reached the edge, my gauntlets and belt began to glow and the stone lifted from my hands. I reached towards it, and it threw a cast of light toward me.

I immediately saw the difference between what it had been to witness Amanda using the stone, and what it was to actually operate it myself. I felt as though I was also suspended off the ground, surrounded by ancient mechanisms which spun around me like a glowing belt in an engine. The case around the Thrall Stone looked to be made of threads of light like an intricate cage, and when I touched it, parts of the surface moved underneath my fingers like a spherical Rubik's Cube. It reminded me of the sliding puzzle Natla had arranged when performing the ritual to open the gates of Helheim.

When nothing further happened, I realised the stone was waiting for me to act.

I experimentally slid some of the pieces to new positions, but had absolutely no idea what effect that had on the process. With rising panic I discovered I had no idea, no clue at all, about how to manipulate the orb to create what I wanted to.

"I thought Natla said this thing was user-friendly!" I shouted, but there was no reply.

I walked around the orb, bent down and looked at it from different angles, and tried to figure out what pattern there was to align. The more I examined each piece, though, the more I realised that the web of lights was like a roadmap of neurons. I would be able to piece together connections in a billion ways and never have any indication of what changes that would make in the final product.

When I stood back behind the orb again, I realized the belt spinning around me had slowed considerably. I was now able to identify that the belt was composed of runes, and they were a sequence of numbers. The numbers counted down to zero: the process was timed. The colour drained from my face.

Trying to calm my breathing, I touched my fingers to the orb, looking rapidly from piece to piece, praying that I'd be able to discern anything about the process before it expired.

Before I was able to make any changes, the belt locked into place and disappeared. When light faded, the Thrall Stone dropped innocently on the ground at the head of a slumped body.

For a moment, I thought I had made some horrible mistake with the orb. The body was only partially covered with clothing which was mostly burnt and eaten away. It hardly mattered, though, because she was spared from indecency by the fact that she also had no skin. The figure before me was almost completely skeletal, with hair still attached and some sinew still connected.

I felt sick, and I heard Amanda inhale sharply behind me. "Did I turn it wrong?" I murmured.

"Her body's been immersed in Eitr for weeks," the Doppelgänger reminded me.

She stirred, and pushed herself to sit, looking up toward me. Glowing, empty eye-sockets regarded me, before she jumped up with surprise. "You!" she accused, backing away from me and nearly falling straight back into the Eitr. "You brought me here!" She looked at Amanda. "You and that woman!" It was horribly nightmarish hearing my mother's voice come from a partially clothed skeleton.

I took a step toward her, worried she would fall over the edge. "No, no, you have it all wrong!" I attempted, holding my arms out in conciliation. "Don't you see? It's Lara, I'm grown up now!"

She stared at me for a moment. "No, it can't be! My daughter was with me when you—" She straightened. "What have you done with her!"

"Nothing, Mother, it's me, I—!"

She interrupted me. "She's just a little girl, you _monster_!" I had no memories of hearing my mother yelling in anger, and I didn't know exactly how to respond. "She's just a _helpless little girl_!"

I stood, shaking, remembering the many freezing nights I'd spent hiking through the Himalayas alone after she'd disappeared. I remembered the frustration I'd felt at finding a village of people and not being able to communicate or lead them back to where my mother had last been. Weeks had passed before I'd even managed to figure out how to get back to a city that had English speakers. Before I'd got there, however, my father had intercepted me while he was searching for the both of us. I remembered the relief and pride in his eyes when he heard of what I'd done, before I told him about my mother.

No wonder she didn't recognise me as her daughter: I wasn't her helpless little girl anymore.

Before I could try and form some idea of how to prove that I was actually her daughter, my mother had gone to brush some hair out of her face, and caught sight of her skeletal hand. She held it in front of her, staring with horror at it. It wasn't until she touched her hand to her face and realised there was no skin on it that she began to _scream._

The sound was inhuman, like a woman screaming in urgent, agonising pain. It strained my eardrums and penetrated my skull, and I stood with my hands pressed to either side of my head feeling like the helpless girl I'd once been. "Please!" I shouted, paralysed by the terror of hearing my mother making such a noise, "Please, please listen to me!"

"_Okh Eshivar_," I heard my own voice say – coming from my left.

Immediately the room fell silent; the residual hum of my mother's screaming faded from the walls around us. Her body relaxed, gazing forward vacantly.

Without her voice, all that was before me was a half-dressed skeleton.

"God," I whispered, stricken to the point of nausea. "What have I done?" I didn't expect an answer.

My Doppelgänger stepped between me and the body, obscuring her. "I've cleared the corridor," I glanced behind us and found the way open. "Go with Amanda. I will follow shortly."

"But…" I began, turning back toward her and trying to look over her shoulder at my mother.

She stepped in the way, preventing me from doing so. "Go. I will deal appropriately with this matter."

Amanda – who looked every bit as shaken as I thought I must do – mutely took my arm and guided me back through the opening. Feeling disoriented, I let her.

As we rounded the corner, I glanced back towards my Doppelgänger. She watched me with grim resolve as she waited for us to leave.

* * *

End Part Two


	21. Chapter 21

Part Three

* * *

Rebuilt Anew 3.1

By Asynca

**Predictably, the rating for this story has changed to M. Consider yourself warned, and stop reading if you think adult activities are likely to offend you.**

* * *

It was the early hours of the morning before Amanda and I crawled onto a pebbled beach somewhere north of Longyearbyen.

It would have been somewhere in the vicinity of freezing, and a savage wind bit the various parts of my body that weren't covered by the drysuit. I was too exhausted both emotionally and physically to really to pay much attention to my discomfort, but it did occur to me that Amanda was only wearing regular clothing, and would be much colder. Fortunately, once I'd helped her wade stiffly out of the water, she managed to pull the Wraith Stone from her neck with the numb fingers pultruding from the top of her guaze mittens and dropped it straight onto the snow-covered tundra. When it burst into flame, it melted a good section of the snow around it immediately.

Handy, I thought, and followed Amanda's lead by kneeling near it.

"Just give me a few minutes," she told me, peeling off my soaking parka and tossing it towards me.

I hope my silence was complicit enough, because I didn't reply to her. I still felt so sick, and shaken, and just so completely disgusted with myself. I couldn't get the sound of that horrible screaming out of my head, and every time I thought on it, I had a rush of fresh adrenaline and nausea. What had possibly made me think it was a good idea? What did I think was going to happen afterwards, after I'd resurrected her? That we'd all go home together and play Happy Family? That image would be burnt into my retinas forever: a skeleton screaming with my mother's voice. A nightmare I had created.

A hesitant hand on my back startled me out of my trance. While I had been staring into the flames, Amanda had apparently rounded the fire, and was now sitting beside me in the mud. She noticed where I was looking and laughed. There was defeat in her voice as she explained, "I'm already soaking wet. My jeans already have acid burn, blood and salt caked in them. What's a little mud going to do?"

It sounded like something the old Amanda would say, and the image of an adult woman dressed in a fancy corset, designer jeans and – admittedly now scuffed – Italian boots several inches deep in mud was at least momentarily entertaining. Furthermore, her hair was slick against her head and neck, but had begun to dry a little fluffy around the edges. In short, she looked absolutely terrible, just as she had in the disastrous Daishi Chen dig. I smiled. It seemed like such a domestic thing to see, Amanda looking her worst.

She sobered up. "I would have done it, too. If it had been me."

By 'it', I was sure she meant resurrecting my mother. I had one of those acute flashbacks again, and winced. Amanda must have seen that expression because the hand on my back rubbed a small circle. "You warned me not to," I pointed out.

She smiled vaguely. "When you're watching someone else screw up, it's easy to see where they're going wrong."

I snorted. "Basically, you're a hypocrite."

Her smile deepened, but her tone was laden when she replied, "Well, I'm already a traitor, a thief, and a murderer... might as well add 'hypocrite' to the list, too." It was all delivered so casually, anyone else might have thought she was kidding. She was kidding, I supposed, but she was also dictating what I had previously painted her as.

The theft was annoying, I decided, but forgivable. I'd be a hypocrite myself if I had a problem with her breaking into my house and stealing an artefact, as I'd certainly managed a rather large number of cat burglaries myself over the years. The murder I still had trouble with. True, she'd never specifically ordered the Doppelgänger to kill Alister. It was also true that I had killed James Rutland not really knowing that they were involved or what the impact would be on her. I also had to concede at that point I may not have cared what the impact was, even if I'd known. I could tell myself I killed Rutland to remain alive myself – because him and his men were conveniently shooting at me – but I knew deep down I'd also done it to ensure I achieved my own goals. My Doppelgänger had eliminated a possible obstruction just as she had been ordered to by Amanda, as had I. Alister and Rutland had died for similar reasons.

I also needed to remind myself that I had probably killed vastly, _vastly_ more people than Amanda ever would.

"We're not that different," I realised aloud.

Amanda's lips parted momentarily as her wry smile faded. She moved the hand that had been resting on my back upwards to stroke a lock of wet fringe away from my face. It was such an intimate gesture, I would have expected it to make me feel uneasy. It didn't, so I let her tuck it behind my ear with gentle fingertips. "You know," she told me, "for a woman who can slay gods, speak a million languages and program nuclear reactors, you're surprisingly slow."

I thought of my total inability to operate the Thrall Stone and my stubborn insistence on using it anyway, even though that wasn't what she was talking about.

Her eyes searched mine, wistful. This time, I knew what was going to happen next far before it actually happened. I could have pulled away at any point, apologised, and stood up. Given what had just happened at the gates of Helheim, I doubted she'd blame me. I didn't, though. I found myself waiting for her to lean in. When she didn't move, I whispered, "It's alright."

She inhaled, I think possibly second guessing what I had meant. It seemed like ages before she did finally kiss me, her lips barely ghosting mine. She tasted like sea salt and rubber from my oxygen tank mask, but I didn't care. I pushed my chin into hers, feeling our mouths drag together and enjoying not having to mind any course stubble as I would usually have to. When I didn't pull away she bore down on me, and I allowed myself to be pushed onto my back. The mud was cool against the skin on my neck, and it was an odd contrast between the heat from the Wraith Stone and Amanda's hot breath.

She pulled away for a moment, checking on me. She had a strand of hair in her mouth, so I extracted it and mirrored her own movement to tuck it behind her ear. She leaned her cheek into my hand, and in the dim light I could see her eyes were swimming. "Is this really happening?" she murmured.

I winced again, remembering the horror I'd created earlier. "That's a good question," I admitted. If someone had listed the sequence of events that would happen to me that day, I'd have laughed in their face.

My nipples had become visible through the drysuit, and Amanda traced slowly around one with her index finger. It felt _good_. I put a hand up behind her head and pulled her face back into mine.

Whatever this was, it was an effective and welcome distraction from thinking about anything that had happened earlier. I was so sick of thinking about everything, I decided I didn't care to bother about what any of it meant. What Amanda was doing was affording me the luxury of focusing on something other than my shame and guilt, and there wasn't a chance that I'd refuse.

As we kissed, her weight on top of me was a familiar feeling; so familiar, in fact, I was constantly surprised when I felt things I didn't expect. I'd grown accustomed to reaching up a man's chest to his shoulders, and when I found myself doing that to Amanda, I met with a couple of unexpected obstructions. Likewise when I ran my hands across her shoulders and down her arms, they were so much thinner than the type of arms I would normally have been feeling. However, her skin was so much softer and smoother than I was used to, and my hands glided so easily across her hips and lower back.

When she use fingertips to turn my head and kissed down my throat, I knew she could feel my racing pulse against her lips. She moved up my body a little for better access to my neck, and the friction of her jeans drawing against my hips had me pressing them toward her.

I leant up a little on one elbow, and wrenched off my backpack, discarding it somewhere. When I lay my shoulders back down, I could feel the squish of the sludge even through my suit. While she was watching me, I lay my hands on her hips, and then pushed them backwards over the seat of her jeans, which was coated with glutinous mud. I ignored it, pulling her in towards me so our hips were sitting against each other.

She was breathing heavily when I reached for the zip of my drysuit.

"Ahem," a voice said very deliberately.

We hurriedly pulled away from each other, startled.

My Doppelgänger was standing with her hands on her hips on the other side of the Wraith Stone looking extremely amused. "Not exactly the state I expected to find you in," she said neutrally.

Even in the firelight, I could see Amanda's cheeks had turned a very violent red. "I suppose it didn't occur to you to leave us alone?" she asked sarcastically, frustration audible.

"Oh, it occurred to me," my Doppelgänger advised her. "Ordinarily I'd keep my mouth well shut. However, I brought company." She indicated some distance beside her, to a mercenary who was staring like a deer caught in headlights at us – it was the servile thrall Amanda had fashioned herself. "The rest of your men were getting on my nerves. My condolences."

I could imagine what had become of them, but I didn't want to know. It would lead to questions about how my Doppelgänger had 'appropriately' dealt with the matter of my poor mother, and I just didn't want to know, or think about it, or remember it. I tried unsuccessfully to push it to the back of my mind.

Amanda shrugged and she moved to stand up. "They knew the risks when I hired them."

I wasn't sure exactly how you'd warn someone about the risk of falling to their deaths, being revived as undead only to be torn limb from limb by the Doppelgänger of your boss's rival, but I didn't address it. I followed Amanda's lead, locating my soiled backpack and strapping it back on. "What are you going to do about him?" I nodded to the mercenary. I wondered if she intended to free him.

Amanda wrinkled her nose, collecting the Wraith Stone from the ground as the flames died from it. "Study him, I suppose. Come on," she told the mercenary, who trotted to her side like a terrier.

The lights of Longyearbyen were visible in the distance, and she began to walk through the thin snow towards them, rubbing her arms. Her mercenary very chivalrously offered her his jacket, and she pushed him into the snow as a reply. I chuckled, watching.

My Doppelgänger had sidled up alongside me. "I gather you two have reconciled." She smirked.

"Don't you start," I told her, shooting her a glare. I then caught sight of a dirty great tear in the shirt I'd leant her. "And watch my clothes, if you don't mind."

"If you're concerned I'm unable to take proper care of them, I'm happy to take them off," she told me oh-so innocently, and reached towards the buttons. "If you like, I can writhe about in the mud as well."

I stared at her, flinching at the image. "Shut up," I hissed, smacking her hand away from the buttons. "Stop teasing me, Amanda's a once-off."

She nodded smugly, eyes twinkling. As we started toward Longyearbyen, the Doppelgänger grinned at me. "You have no sense of humour," she accused.

Her grin faded when I raised my eyebrow at her. "Would you, if you were in my place right now?"


	22. Chapter 22

Rebuilt Anew 3.2

By Asynca, who really wishes she could figure out exactly what classifies as 'explicit' and what is simply 'suggested'. As a result, she will be posting uncensored content in a link from her profile in the near future.

* * *

"No. Make do."

Amanda may have been smirking at me, but she was concealing it well behind a gauze mitten.

Behind me, I heard the doctor take a measured breath. "Ms Croft," he began in a thick Norwegian accent, "you must understand that if I stitch hair into the wound, there is a strong chance that it will cause infection. Especially in your," he paused, before continuing diplomatically, "state." He hadn't been too impressed that we'd come into his surgery covered in mud, but at least he'd accepted that I wasn't able to wash my hair properly without the gash in my head patched up.

"Then I'll take antibiotics. Put the clippers away."

He sighed audibly, and went to go and retrieve something from a cabinet on the other side of the surgery. I didn't particularly care if he found me to be a difficult patient: it was my head, and therefore it was my decision how any wound on it was dressed. And no one was going to be shaving any of my hair off, regardless of the reason, and that was that.

While I perched on the examining table staring resolutely at my knees, Amanda had been surreptitiously peeking at me from underneath her fringe. Despite recent events, it still felt somewhat disconcerting to have her gazing at me. I looked pointedly at her.

"I don't think I've ever seen you with your hair down," she softly explained.

I narrowed my eyes; my hair was encrusted with a combination of dried blood, crumbling mud and sea salt, and her implication was that she _liked_ how it looked. "If you like, on weekends I can slit my skull open and pat some nice topsoil into my hair and we can go clubbing," I said with bright sarcasm.

She scowled at me, and there was hurt apparent in her voice when she said, "Remind me never to compliment you." I felt a little bad about how sharp I'd been, but I left it.

The doctor returned with a handful of supplies. "Head forward," he directed me. I followed his instructions and felt him swab the area with stinging fluid, and then follow up the discomfort with a series of small pin-prick injections of what I assumed to be local anaesthetic.

Amanda had taken to slowly walking around the edge of the room, examining the many anatomy and disease posters with interest. She was quite pretty, I thought, when she wasn't stomping about in a strop. The skin on her lower back was textured with goose bumps underneath the lace of her corset top; it was odd to think I'd touched it, and that I'd probably touch it again. I noticed the seat of her jeans was still covered in mud, and to my embarrassment I could see tracks of where my hands had been on it, including a smudged outline of my fingers. I hoped the doctor hadn't noticed.

"Head forward," he repeated sternly; I'd been turning my head as Amanda walked. I looked back at my knees, blushing.

Eventually, the pulling and prodding of my head stopped, and the doctor stood back to admire his work. "Passable," he decided. "But you're going to need to keep it very clean, because with all that hair I can't tape a cover on it." I hopped off the table, and he helped me tie my hair back up. "Perhaps your friend can help you wash it." When Amanda turned at the reference to herself, the doctor's eyes went from her face to her bandaged hands. "Then again, perhaps she will not be able to." He gestured at her to approach him.

She did, presenting her hands. He unwrapped the bandages, and raised his eyebrows at her palms. "How does a person do this to themself?" he asked her, going once again to retrieve supplies from his cabinet.

Amanda and I glanced at each other. "Campfire accident," she lied, examining them herself with a pained look on her face. He returned, laying out some items between them on the table. "Will they scar?" she asked him.

He took her wrists and examined them from a few angles. "I think not," he said finally. "They look like second degree burns. Your palms will be darker for a few months, but it should fade." He noted Amanda's expression. "I'll give you some painkillers before you leave," he promised, and then set about dressing them.

While Amanda was being tended to, I stared out the window of the surgery down to the rest of the town; people were beginning to awaken for the day and leave their houses. Given that my Doppelgänger and Amanda's mercenary were both waiting outside, I wondered if I should be particularly concerned about how sinister they looked in daylight. Then again, there were usually plenty of tourists in Svalbard, so the locals were probably used to lots of odd people wandering about. It wasn't like they were skeletons as my mother had been. How could I have even thought I'd be able to take her home with me?

I had a photo of her and Father on my PDA; I flipped the device open and scrolled through the photos until I found it. My father always looked a little stern and authoritative in pictures, but he'd never been that way in person. I wondered if that would have changed if he'd have found out what I'd just done to Mother. I looked down at her poised neck and gentle smile, and had a sudden and vivid memory of skeletal hands touching her face and _screaming_. My throat caught, and a swallowed against the lump in it. My sweet, sheltered mother – I had made her last moments on earth the hellish nightmare they would have been the first time she died. Her own daughter had done that do her.

"All done," the doctor announced at last, having given Amanda a fresh, dry pair of bandage mittens.

I snapped out of my trance, and closed my PDA. I wasn't going to cry in a doctor's surgery, I wasn't. I took a slow, calming breath.

"You should only need these for one, maybe two days. They should heal enough to use within the week." He gave Amanda a bottle of numbing antiseptic fluid and a series of other small packets that I didn't pay attention to, and sent us on our way.

Outside, my Doppelgänger was letting the mercenary arm wrestle her on the handrail. From the strain apparent on his face, I think if he'd been alive, he would definitely have burst something. My Doppelgänger, on the other hand, looked incredibly bored. When we approached her, she bent his hand completely over the edge almost as an afterthought. It was an amusing sight: he would have easily been twice her size.

"I'll get you next time," he told her, shaking out his arm.

"I don't doubt it," she told him smugly, and rounded me to have a look at the stitching. "Much cleaner," was her assessment. She then spotted the expression on my face, and looked quizzically at me. I shook my head slightly to indicate that she shouldn't address it. Her eyebrow flickered, but she said nothing.

When the mercenary went to examine Amanda's hands, she pulled them sharply away from him. "Go get my cars back," she told him. "I don't care how." He trotted obediently off towards the road that led to the mine. She watched him go. "The best part is I don't have to pay him. Pity the rest of them were destroyed."

"Sorry," the Doppelgänger said insincerely.

Back at the hotel, Amanda and I separated so she could go up to her own room. Once I'd dumped my gear, the first thing I did was open my laptop and connect to the Internet. There were about ten messages pending, and all of them were from Zip. "Rise and shine," I told the empty webcam when it popped open.

A forest of dreadlocks rose from the corner of the screen, accompanied by pained groaning. "Lara?"

"The very same. What are all these messages?" I asked him redundantly, opening them one by one as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

"You know I hate it when you don't take your headset," he complained, basically detailing the contents of each email with less inappropriate language. "What's the point of even having one if you don't wear—" He was looking behind me. "What? Is that…?"

I glanced over my shoulder. Amanda had wandered downstairs into my room and was carrying a fresh change of clothes, and I knew what _that _meant. The way I felt, I could really do with a nice dose of endorphins. I perked up a little, and turned back to the computer. "Amanda? Well, yes. It's rather a long story, actually."

He rubbed one of his temples. "What is it with you and being bee-eff-effs with people who try to kill you, anyway?" He leaned off-screen to reach for something, muttering, "It's like you're not just happy to put your life in danger on workdays. You want to bring it home, too." When he came back into the frame, he was holding a package with an airmail sticker on it. "'Extreme friendships', or something," he finished, and shook the package at the screen. "This came for you. It feels like some sort of old book. I would have just put it with all the others the insurance company is replacing, but it was addressed specifically to you."

I didn't pay too much attention to it; I ordered reprints all the time online, so it was probably something of the sort. "Thanks, just put it in my room," I told him, closing my email program.

"Lara," he began somewhat hesitantly, "are you okay? You look kind of like you've seen a ghost."

_Just a ghost, I'd be happy with_, I thought. I didn't really feel like discussing it with Zip, so I opted to just dismiss it. "No ghosts this time, but as you can see I'm a bit of a mess. Just wanted to let you know I'm not dead before I go clean up."

He watched me steadily from the screen, and I could tell he was wrestling with whether or not to persist. Eventually, he said simply, "Okay, later," and cut the connection.

As I shut the screen, I made eye contact with my Doppelgänger who had been leaning against the far wall near where I'd dropped my backpack. The way she was looking at me… for some reason I knew implicitly that she understood the problems I was grappling with. It was both comforting and disturbing to be so deftly read. I wanted to discuss it with her, but at that point all I could really consider was some sort of relaxing combination of showering, sleep and a good shag. I nodded my head towards Amanda who was busy inspecting her hair in one of the mirrors, and the Doppelgänger smiled knowingly at me. However, when she crossed the room to covertly exit, I felt as if she were deliberately hiding her face from me. Why, I would worry about later.

"I had some other ideas about the Power Runes," Amanda told me once the door was shut, as a hopelessly transparent excuse as to why she'd shown up in my room. "I thought we could continue our discussion about them, since we didn't get a chance before."

"You need a change of clothes to do that, then?"

She scowled, colour rising to her cheeks. "Fine," she retorted, "I guess I'll go back to my own room and struggle with the lacing on my top all by my—"

I stopped her as she made to leave. "Oh, come off it." I led her towards the bathroom. "There's a great big tub in here. I've got one or two ideas about some other things from before we could continue."


	23. Chapter 23

Rebuilt Anew 3.3

By Asynca

This chapter contains 100% femslash. However, it has been carefully checked to ensure all details are suggested and that there's no gory graphic ewwww-factor (to paraphrase, it's an M-rated sex-scene). However, if the idea of Lara and Amanda going for it bothers you, you can safely skip this chapter and check back in a few days for the next one.

* * *

The lacings on Amanda's top were, just as she warned me, incredibly bloody tedious. Even my hiking boots weren't as bad. "Ever considered Velcro?" I asked her dryly, trying to pick the knot in the mud-caked ribbon.

Amanda stared down her front at me kneeling on the tiles, looking rather entertained. "Next time I get dressed expecting you'll be the one undressing me, I'll consider it."

I finally got a fix on the knot, and worked it out with my fingernails. For the rest of the lacing I just grabbed the ribbing and shook it in and out like an accordion until I thought it was loose enough to get over her shoulders. Amanda held her arms in the air and as I stood up and tried to work it over her head, laughing at my surprise when there was just bare skin underneath. "That's the _good _thing about wearing corset tops," she grinned. "Not having to find a store I like that stocks 30DDs."

I had plenty to say about my own struggles to find a sports bra that did the trick, but I was too aware of the fact I had a topless woman – who was much taller than me, I might add – standing in front of me.

Her breasts weren't so different than my own; her skin was much paler and her nipples were a very gentle shade of pink. I trailed my fingertips up Amanda's stomach to cup them, but at the last second I spotted the filthy tape that I still had around my palms. I could pick it off, but that would expose what I expected to be nasty blisters, and I didn't have any fresh tape to replace it with. Neither alternative seemed very appealing. I turned my palms up to frown at them.

Amanda chuckled. "Lara, any issues I had with dirt got cured long ago in Daishi Chen." She placed her fingertips gently on my wrists, and guided them to her breasts.

She inhaled sharply as a filled my hands with them, lifting them from her chest and catching her nipples between my index and middle fingers. She leaned into my hands, watching me intently from under heavy lids.

When she bent down to kiss me, I freed my hands for a moment to undo my drysuit and shake off the torso of it. My bra followed suit, getting thrown vaguely towards the bedroom. Standing on tiptoes, I snaked my arms over her shoulders, pulling her lips firmly against mine. I could feel our breasts touch as our bodies pressed together; there was something enticing about the illicitness of two sets of them. As much as I tended to despise lads mags, I had to concede they were right about the appeal of it. Besides, if it didn't do it now, I was probably never going to get another opportunity.

She was smiling into the kiss, and I pulled away a little to comment, "You know, you're a lot less grumpy like this."

She snorted. "Maybe I just needed to get laid." As she moved back toward my lips she asked, "Can you undo my belt?"

When I moved my hands down to do exactly that, I found she had probably been trying to unlatch it herself for some time. I very gently pushed her mitten-covered hands away, and made short work of the belt and the zip of her jeans, pushing them easily over her hips. I realised her knickers had gone with them when I crouched down to help her with her boots.

Glancing up her naked body, I saw she was watching me with parted lips. "While you're down there..." she joked breathily as I removed her boots.

"Patience, patience." I grinned, stepping out of my drysuit and kicking it off before leaning against her once again.

There was a ghost of a smile on her lips as her eyes fell on my breasts. "Figures," she sighed. I looked at her quizzically, and she held up her mittens. "I finally get to touch you, and I can't."

"I'm sure you'll find a way." I shot her a cheeky smile, and moved deliberately away from her to start running the shower. There was no point in having a nice bath if we were still covered in grot. Besides, it gave me a great opportunity to show Amanda all the parts of my body that she wouldn't be touching with those burnt hands.

Once I'd set the water at a nice temperature, I completed Amanda's torture by stepping under the flow and letting it flood over my skin and between my breasts. Facing her, I put my hands behind my head and slowly worked the mud out of my hair, minding the wound. Careful not to let the water run over my face, we locked eyes.

She was breathing heavily when she murmured, "I hate you."

"Uh huh," I said disbelievingly, beckoning to her. "Put your hands over your head, and you won't get wet."

"Too late," she told me cryptically, following my instructions and as she stepped against me, trailing kisses down my neck. It had been a while since anyone had done that to me. I hooked my hands around her waist to pull her hips against mine as the warm water gushed between us.

I felt around the wall where I remembered perhaps having seen a recess, and found a helpfully unwrapped courtesy soap. I held it over my head for a moment to wet it, and then placed it at the base of Amanda's spine. She kissed up my throat to my mouth, and parted my lips with her own whilst I used my hands to lather soap up and down the length of her back. I arched back a little and pulled her with me so the water could wash away the suds on her back.

She pulled away from me, challenge evident on her face. "You know," she leaned towards my ear and whispered, "my front is dirty, too."

_Not_ _as dirty as your mind, _I thought, reflecting on how apparently dirty my own mind was. Grinning at her, I pushed her out of the flow of water, running the slick soap across her stomach and up over her breasts. Slowly, deliberately, I massaged the tracks into a thick lather, paying particular attention to making sure her nipples were _especially _clean. Her hips were relaxing against mine from the attention, and I watched as her arms were slowly being forgotten and had begun to sink towards the flow of water.

"Watch your hands," I warned her, adding, "unless you want me to tie them up there to keep them safe." I gestured at the top of the shower cubicle.

"That would hurt more than getting them wet," she pointed out, "but do it anyway." I thought she might have been joking, and my suspicions were confirmed when she abandoned the idea and leant forward, moving her soapy body against me. Without friction, one of her thighs slipped between mine. God, it felt good. It solidified my conviction that I was definitely making the right decision by going ahead with this. I put my hands on her lower back and pressed her more firmly against me.

She brushed our lips together, exhaling over my mouth. "Wow," she murmured, kissing the point of my chin. "You know how often I used to lie awake in my tent and imagine sneaking into yours?"

I would have replied, but I was too distracted by the wet leg pressing between my own and the torrent of warm water flushing down my stomach.

"This is surreal," she continued, kissing along the point of my jaw. "Being here, being in here with you. You doing," she glanced down at our mashed hips, "that."

I wasn't sure exactly what it was that I was doing with Amanda and, as a result, I was making especially sure not to overthink it. It felt good, I'd had the worst possible day in documented history, and that was enough of a reason for me. I'd shagged men using less logic even than that. Additionally, the way she'd begun to rock against me... well, I was losing the fight to even retain the ability to think in full sentences. I wanted more.

"I want you," she whispered, her breath cooling my neck as she echoed my thoughts. "God, Lara, I—"

"Alright," I interrupted her, reaching above my head to angle the showerhead between us, washing off all the soap. I then knocked it to face the wall which I leant a short distance back against. The invitation couldn't have been clearer.

She kissed me once, firmly, and bent down to run her tongue down the wet skin between my breasts and down my torso. Arms bent awkwardly behind her neck, she then moved past my navel. Pausing for a moment before reaching her destination, she waited what seemed like an agonisingly long period of time before continuing between my legs.

My eyelids fell shut as I looked up towards the ceiling, a sigh escaping my lips. The back of my head was resting against water-warmed tiles, and on some planet that may have hurt my freshly stitched head wound, but not where I was just then. Every tiny change she made in the movement of her lips and tongue wielded the rest of me like a puppet, and before long I found myself gripping her head, fingers weaved through her fine hair. The world could have completely collapsed around me and I wouldn't have cared or noticed; all I could focus on was the passionate attention she was lovingly giving me.

I would have been content to stay in that place for much, much longer – only concerned with Amanda and what she was doing to me. The trouble was, she brought me so quickly and easily to the brink that I wasn't able to resist just letting go... reaching above my head to grip the pipes, pushing against the glass of the cubicle, and pressing forward into her face. She supported me with arms wrapped tightly around my thighs.

As I relaxed, allowing her to move away from me, every muscle in my body simply _sang_. I leant heavily back against the tiles, breathing deeply. "Wow." That was _definitely_ what I'd needed.

When Amanda smiled up at me, her face looked like that of someone who'd recently reached Nirvana. Gazing lazily down at her, I ran my hands through her wet hair. She looked wistful as she said quietly, "Okay, I'm self-actualized now. I can die happy."

I laughed shortly at the idea of the dark new Amanda actually acknowledging she was _happy_. "I thought you once told me your life's aim was to be _the _renowned expert in ancient religious ritual?"

"I've changed my mind. This is better." She paused, screwing up her nose. "Although, ouch."

As she stood up, I frowned at her, not catching her meaning.

She held up her now-soaking mittens. "Looks like I'll be needing to try those mysterious Norwegian painkillers after all," she said simply.


	24. Chapter 24

Rebuilt Anew 3.4

By Asynca

A couple of people have suggested I draw everyone's attention to the fact I'm a shameless XNA addict. There are several random scenes from Rebuilt Anew available on my Deviant Art page in my gallery; if you browse my favourites, a couple of people have also done Rebuilt Anew fanart using XNA and PSP. I can't seem to put a link here as URLs are removed and code is flattened. Annoying. The link to my dA page is available from my profile.

Enjoy.

* * *

"Have you seen_ Alien_?" Amanda asked me gravely, her unwrapped hands upturned on each knee as she sat on the end of my bed.

I smirked, searching around for a couple of spare gauze bandages I'd thrown into my suitcase. "I very much doubt anything's going to explode out of your hands, regardless of how bad they look." Not finding them, I walked past her to check to see if I'd stuffed them into my backpack and forgotten about them. On my way past her, she stuck her pyjama-clad leg out to bar my passage, inclining her head towards a packet beside her on the duvet. Picking it up, I flipped it over and read the fine print, expecting to be confronted with a string of unintelligible Norwegian. I wasn't. "Codeine. I guess some things are the same in every language."

"These had better be good," she muttered miserably. "Give me a few of them."

"Recommended dose is two. Open up," I instructed her, popping the correct number out onto her tongue. _Odd to think of where that's just been_, I thought to myself as she took the pills into her mouth and looked up at me. I noticed she had beautiful skin, and felt very strange at having made such an observation. It seemed wrong, somehow, to be thinking of _Amanda_ in that way. I was able to look down at her pyjamas and remember in intimate detail what lay beneath them. It left me at a bit of a loss as to know how I should really behave toward her now. Would everything be terribly awkward now that we'd slept together?

Since I couldn't really leave Amanda to try and swallow those giant pills while I reflected on what had just happened, I put the whole notion aside for later consideration. Leaning over to the table between the beds, I poured her a glass of water from the jug there. I was going to feed that to her as well, but she accepted it very carefully from me with her fingertips and took a big mouthful. She did, however, give the glass to me to dispose of. I put it on the bench as I continued to where I'd dropped my luggage.

Even after emptying the entire contents of my backpack onto the carpet, I still couldn't find any trace of those bandages.

I sat back on my heels. "It doesn't make any sense." I looked accusingly at my empty bags. "I know I packed extra medical supplies, I always do."

Amanda shrugged. "It doesn't matter. That doctor gave me some, but I left them upstairs. I'll be right back," she stood up, using her wrist to open the door and then slipping through it. I wondered what exactly possessed her to run around a hotel with just those flimsy pyjamas on, but since she was a grown woman I figured she could make her own decisions about what level of indecency she was prepared to commit. Just so long as I wasn't involved.

I had turned around to repack my bag when the door opened again. I twisted a little, expecting to see Amanda. However, it was the Doppelgänger who had entered.

She had that same rather glum expression. "Sky falling in?" I asked her.

She ignored my comment. "You are welcome to ask me to leave if you would prefer to spend time alone with Amanda."

I snorted. "No, I think we've spent rather enough time alone, thank you." I grinned at her. "Long enough for her to get grumpy again, in fact."

Her eyes were on the floor as she nodded slowly in understanding. "I would like to discuss something that's been plaguing me, preferably prior to returning to your manor."

"Oh?" I stood, giving her my complete attention.

She walked toward me, taking my hand and placing something in it – I looked down to see my missing bandages. I raised my eyebrows. The fact she'd so easily engineered Amanda's brief departure, I found to be perhaps even more unnerving than her uncanny ability to look at my face and read my mind. It was becoming increasingly easier to recognise Natla's touch in her creation.

She inhaled slowly, unblinking. "How do you think it would feel to kill your own mother?"

I swallowed, thinking of my first journey to Helheim. I could still remember seeing the top of my pistols kick as I fired them and the spasm of her body as they impacted. That moment still haunted me, and on that occasion it had simply been a mindless thrall in my mother's body. How it must have been for my Doppelgänger – me, really – to kill a sentient person, I could not fathom. "Thank you," I murmured. "I can't imagine what it must have been like. Just," I searched for an elaboration, but couldn't find one, "just, thank you."

She watched me calmly, taking a significant period of time to consider her reply. "That's just it," she said, "I feel nothing."

I squinted at her, wondering what sort of response she was expecting from me. "Isn't that a good thing?" I wondered aloud. "If at least one of us is able to sleep soundly despite what I did?"

"Do _you_ think it's a 'good thing'?"

I opened my mouth to form some sort of reply when I was interrupted.

"All done!" A male voice announced at the door, barging in. Luckily, I'd thought to put a bra on under my t-shirt.

My Doppelgänger stepped out of the way to reveal the rather jubilant mercenary. His pants were wet up to his knees, and he was trekking mud all through the carpet. I raised an eyebrow at him as he looked enthusiastically around, tossing two sets of car keys onto the bench. "Where is she?"

"She's here," a dry voice said from behind him. Amanda edged her way past his huge tree-trunk physique into the room, stopping dead in her tracks when she spotted the bandages in my hand. Before she was able to comment, however, the mercenary went to relieve her of the bag she was trying to carry. She shoved him with an elbow. "God, _go away _already."

My Doppelgänger pressed her lips together, a rather sizeable glower sinking across her face for a moment. I wondered if I looked that intimidating when _I_ frowned. She also looked rather frustrated, an expression that she turned somewhat bitterly on the cheerful man. "Doesn't it bother you that you're dead?"

It seemed like a rather loaded question, but surprisingly he looked completely devoid of internal conflict. "No."

I've no doubt that Amanda would have slapped her own forehead if her hands weren't in the state they were in. "Scat, both of you!" Amanda said in passing to them, heading towards me.

I shared a glance with my Doppelgänger. She understood, and stayed put. "I thought we could play a nice game of Monopoly together," she said without any hint of humour whatsoever. The only sign she was joking was the absurdity of what she was suggesting. "I had great plans for a development on Mayfair."

Amanda sat at the small table and chair setting, shooting a poisonous glance at my Doppelgänger as she slung the large Guess bag she'd had over her shoulder toward me. It tumbled against my feet. "I take it that bag isn't just filled with medical supplies?"

"It's my overnight bag," she said dismissively. I narrowed my eyes at it, but didn't say anything. I had hands to dress, after all, so I set about that instead.

Amanda waved her hand toward the mercenary. "Go sleep upstairs in my room," she directed him. He stood at attention as if he were being issued a military order, and then promptly collected her room key and exited. "You too," she repeated to my Doppelgänger, "go play board games or whatever with Lurch and leave us alone."

My Doppelgänger raised an eyebrow at me. She had opened the Mini Bar and was reviewing the contents with interest by the time I had finished bandaging Amanda's palms. Eventually she selected several tiny bottles of liqueur, and held them out towards Amanda. "Here," she said neutrally, "isn't this about the point when you usually get drunk and pass out?"

Amanda turned her head sharply towards the Doppelgänger, speaking with dangerous precision. "What?"

The Doppelgänger just smiled artificially, holding out the bottles towards her in faux-helpfulness.

Amanda went to stand, the stone around her neck beginning to swirl with energy. I restrained her, despite being secretly amused by the Doppelgänger's means of reminding Amanda she was no longer a slave. "Stop it, both of you," I managed sternly. Amanda didn't attempt to shake herself out of my grasp as she once would have.

My Doppelgänger may even have winked at me as she returned the bottles to the fridge. I suspected she was finding the task of hanging around to be far more entertaining that she should have.

"I need some sleep," Amanda told me as if she expected me to sympathise with her and shoo my Doppelgänger away. "Before I kill that thing."

Her choice of words jarred me; I wondered if she had spoken that way to be purposefully hurtful or if she really did consider my Doppelgänger to be something less than human. Either way, I wasn't particularly impressed, especially given the huge act of kindness the Doppelgänger had done for me as we left Helheim. My Doppelgänger was clearly not your average thrall, and I didn't care much for the suggestion that she was.

Releasing Amanda, I gestured at the other bed. "Then go ahead," I said evenly, walking to my own.


	25. Chapter 25

Rebuilt Anew 3.5

By Asynca

* * *

Your author is back from the dead (however, tragically, sans superhuman strength and healing powers).

* * *

When I awoke the following morning, I could tell by the silence that Amanda was gone.

I wasn't particularly surprised or bothered by her absence; in fact, given that she'd been tossing and turning as loudly as she could while I was trying to get to sleep, I rather welcomed the reprieve. It had been hard enough to get to sleep with my awful headache without her sulking. She still had quite the temper, it seemed.

I turned towards the window, stretching my stiff muscles. Outside, it had begun to snow again. I watched the flurries, thinking it would be lovely if by some miracle we could have a white Christmas in the south of England that year. My father had been a top snowman builder, I fondly recalled.

"She's been outside trying to get the car moving for nearly half an hour," a voice informed me, somewhat disapprovingly.

Frowning, I turned toward the other bed which I had been expecting to be empty. My Doppelgänger was reclined on top of the clovers, legs crossed at the ankle with her head resting casually on one hand and the pillow.

"If you're so concerned about Amanda," I replied, "perhaps _you_ could be the one to go and assist her." I then considered her position and added, "Did you sleep there all night?"

Amusement was briefly visible on her face. "Why would it bother you if I did?"

Her question made me angry, and I didn't care to discuss it further. "It wouldn't," I told her dismissively. "Why are _you_ trying to get me to help a very capable woman start her own car?"

"Because I didn't just sleep with that woman and then banish her to the twin bed," my Doppelgänger pointed out smugly.

"That's enough," I told her, feeling my blood begin to boil. It wasn't the fifteenth bloody century, I didn't have to marry everyone I slept with. I certainly wasn't obligated to help Amanda of all people do something as simple as catch a taxi simply because of what had transpired the night before. "We're both adults, she can catch her own taxi," I turned away from her in bed to indicate that I didn't wish to continue the conversation. "Stop bothering me and go help her if you feel she needs it."

"You're easily bothered this morning," she observed, entertainment still audible. "However, if you reflect on what actually occurred, you'll recall it was me she insulted, and not you." She paused, allowing me some time to consider what she'd said before continuing, "It's minus twenty, snowing, and she doesn't have full use of her hands." I could hear the other bed creak as she turned toward mine. "Not helping a friend is unlike you."

"Look, uh," I struggled, "_Lara_," it felt odd, but would suffice. I sat up bolt upright and on edge. "What I choose to do or not do is no concern of yours, and I find it really infuriating to have you meddling in decisions I make."

She watched me knowingly. "Suit yourself."

I made a frustrated noise and threw the covers off me, swinging out of bed. She was right, and that was the most maddening thing of the lot.

I dressed quickly, shoved everything angrily into my suitcase, and exited the hotel.

I spotted Amanda on the far side of the valet circle, sitting miserably on the hood of her enormous black four wheel drive. Contrary to what the Doppelgänger had told me, she had clearly stopped trying to start it, and had taken to smoking and looking sorry for herself. I wrinkled my nose, dropping my luggage in the doorway.

She saw my expression as I approached the vehicle. "What?" she asked flatly. There were heavy bags under her eyes.

I looked pointedly at the cigarette in the fingertips of her swaddled hand. She glared at me. "Going to lecture me about how they'll kill me?" I said nothing, indicating she should get off the hood so I could pop it open. She laughed humourlessly. "Like tomb raiding's _not_ going to kill you."

She slid down as I lifted the hood open to get a look at the engine. I glanced cursorily over it. "Nothing's cracked, your battery's probably just so cold there's no conduction in it."

She didn't look at all interested in what I had to say about the car. "I know."

I stood back, letting the hood fall shut with a loud bang. "You know?"

She shrugged. "It's not even mine, it's hired. I called a cab about ten minutes ago."

I watched her through narrowed eyes, aghast. I wanted to shout at her for making me come downstairs to 'help' her, except that it wasn't at all her fault that I'd done so. It was my Doppelgänger. I was so completely disgusted with myself that I'd trusted her again and been manipulated _again_, and the worst part of all was that she'd obviously engineered the situation so that I'd be forced to reconcile with Amanda. Though terrifically angry about it, I was still able to recognise the whole setup was an act of benevolence, despite the way it had been transacted. She could have just _told_ me to come down, I thought with annoyance, but then realised that telling me to do anything never went particularly well. She obviously had done whatever she thought was necessary to get me to have a conversation with Amanda, and it had worked.

However, her pure motives didn't mean that I wasn't _really angry _about it.

Amanda looked a little spooked by my probably furious expression. "What, it's just a car!"

I shook my head, opting to not tell Amanda what had just happened. The last thing Amanda needed was more fuel to stoke her hatred of my Doppelgänger. "Never mind."

Amanda put the cigarette to her mouth and inhaled deeply, letting the smoke slowly drift out of her mouth. "Normally people are in a good mood the morning after." She didn't make eye contact with me.

I ignored the reference to our shower. "After what I did in Helheim, can you blame me?"

She thought about that for a few moments. "Natla was always very good at making me feel bad about myself," she said cryptically. I understood what she meant; that none of this would have happened if not for Natla. However, even if Natla had somehow placed Mother's body in our path during the brief period of time we'd accessed her, it was still me who had made the final decision about trying to resurrect my mother. That _screaming_... No one deserved that ending, least of all my mother.

Before I'd had an opportunity to consider the matter further, Amanda's taxi arrived. I immediately recognised it.

The driver pulled up beside us, and stepped out of the vehicle, leaving it running. "Ey, Lara!" He grinned, reaching out to shake hands with me. "You are still in one piece." His eyes darted up to the dressing in my hair, but he didn't say anything of it.

Amanda forgot her cigarette, staring incredulously at me. When I gave her a quizzical look, she concealed a grin and shook her head.

"Espen," I acknowledged as I shook his hand, and then jogged over to the alcove to grab my suitcase to let him load it in the boot. Amanda and I would be sharing the trip, I gathered.

"So," he glanced at his console as we both climbed into the back seat of the car, "we are going to the airport, yes?"

Amanda tossed the butt of her cigarette out the window, a challenge evident in her expression when she looked back at me. I decided to ignore her. Instead I turned back to Espen. "That's right." I might as well leave now, I figured.

I probed the shape of my backpack as it sat on my lap just to be safe, checking the Thrall Stone was still inside. My Doppelgänger was still in the room, but since she'd never shown any bother getting between Helheim and England I wasn't particularly concerned about not providing her with a method of transport to the airport. More concerningly, though, Amanda's mercenary was missing.

"Where's..." I made a circular gesture with my hand, alluding to more information that I was providing, "the man you had with you?"

I watched Espen's eyes in the rear vision mirror, making sure he wasn't too interested in the conversation.

Amanda rolled her eyes. "Don't ask."

I raised my eyebrows, wondering if she'd disposed of him. "You didn't..."

She grinned faintly and shook her head. "Believe me, I wanted to."

I could see Espen's eyes smile, and could guess what he thought we were talking about. If he only knew, I thought.

At the airport, Amanda glanced at the metre and made to reach into her purse to get payment. Espen waived his hand at her. "No, no!" He laughed. "No charge." To me, he said, "Good luck," and helped us move our luggage up to the entrance of the hanger.

Amanda watched him leave, her eyebrows in her hairline. "Remind me to share more rides with you," she commented, amusement in her voice. I grinned at her, deciding not to tell her about the wad of notes I'd given Espen the very day before.

Once delivered to the airport, we were in the awkward position of being alone together whilst we waited for Amanda's charter flight.

Amanda sat on her upright suitcase, fiddling with the dressings on her hands. There were snowflakes falling into her hair, I noticed. As they gradually melted, they revealed pink scalp beneath the platinum blond. While I was watching her, her nose turned red with the cold and I had an uncomfortable, almost protective desire to offer her a scarf and a beanie. I managed not to.

She was quieter and more brooding that I ever remembered her. Was this the way she was now, or had I been the cause of it?

"Where are you flying to?" I wondered aloud.

She took a slow breath. Rather than answering, she asked, "Can I have the Thrall Stone?"

I frowned, hugging my free backpack more firmly to my stomach. "No."

"I didn't do all this work to not get to complete my study," she told me conclusively, "so I guess I'm coming back to England with you."

I felt all at once terrifically relieved and yet extremely claustrophobic. "Is that so?"

She looked up with dismay, reacting to my tone of voice. "Or am I not allowed to?"

I toyed with the idea of refusing her. It would be horrid of me to send her the wrong message; but, then, I didn't really know what message I wanted to send at all. She was my friend, I recalled, for so many years and now once again. I wasn't entirely sure where impulsively sleeping with her fit into the picture, but it seemed a bad reason to not invite her into my house. She'd saved my life, after all. Also, I was rather keen to get her opinion of the runes I'd filmed while we were in Helheim.

However, Zip was going to _kill_ me. "You can come back to my manor as long as you promise not to blow it up or murder anyone in it."

She flinched. "Touché." Hesitating, she then said with veiled humour, "The repairs look great though, I love the new library."

I remembered the heel print in the centre of my photo, and looked accusingly at her. "Don't you dare steal anymore of my artefacts, either."

She snorted. "This coming from someone whose main profession is stealing from the dead."

She had a point, which my silence conceded. When she shot a triumphant lopsided grin at me, for a few awkward moments I locked eyes with her involuntarily. I quickly looked away, feeling a blush had risen to my cheeks. Trying to conceal it, I set about removing the cartridges from my guns before her plane arrived, feeling horribly uncomfortable.


	26. Chapter 26

Rebuilt Anew 3.6

By Asynca

* * *

I remember once some years ago I was in Sudan searching for a particular burial ground near where the Nile merges into Lake Nubia, and I ran into some local trouble. Rather serious local trouble, actually, and ended up with a pistol shot straight to my stomach. Even under normal circumstances that's a pretty horrid wound to suffer, and I was at least an hour away from any sort of medical treatment. I'd wager I could write a book about every single bump in that bloody shocking road back to the airstrip, the pain was so incredible.

Well, I had another series of books to write about the plane trip home with Amanda.

Firstly, the route Amanda had chartered was being serviced by a plane that was hardly bigger than an ultralight; in fact, I felt like perhaps my pantry at home would be roomier than the entire fuselage. This, of course, meant that the dirty great propellers were mounted directly next to either window, and roared like a hurricane for the entire journey.

As if that weren't bad enough, my headache worsened with altitude, to the point where any movement at all made it really difficult to weather.

When landed in Tromsø to refuel, I made a beeline to the chemist at the tiny airport to find out what Norway considered to be the strongest over-the-counter painkillers.

I'd been bent double, sorting through the ones on the shelf, when a box of _Nobligan_ – whatever that was – tapped me on the shoulder. The box was being crab-clawed by bandaged hands. I looked up them to Amanda, who was wearing sunglasses despite the very moderate lighting.

"Here." She handed the box to me as I stood up. I turned it over, finding only Norwegian on the back. "It's Norway's answer to Tramadol." I'd never heard of that brand, either, but figured it was some sort of strong opiate. "And," she patted her bag furtively, "Some _VikingFjord_ to wash it down."

I was beginning to see why my Doppelgänger had joked about Amanda being an alcoholic.

"Planning to have a party on the way home, then?" I inquired, a little dryly.

She shrugged, a slight scowl on her face at my question. "Better than feeling like my hands are on fire." I was about to reluctantly agree with her, when she snatched the box back from me and spun on her heels, exiting the store. I watched her for a moment, confused, and then realised she'd actually just stormed out.

At that point I probably should have just let her go. I must still have been slightly concussed, though, because without thinking the matter through I promptly took off after her.

She stopped in the middle of departures and turned towards me, probably for effect, and then said resentfully, "Normally you'd need a script for these. You think you'd be grateful."

Brilliant, I now had a teenage temper tantrum to deal with. "Amanda, stop making such a fuss, I _am_ grateful, as I was about to mention." Because she was taking such long strides I practically needed to jog to keep up with her, which did wonders for my already pounding head.

Eventually she had to stop, because we reached a security barrier. "No you're not," she told me over a shoulder, "you're acting like I should check into rehab."

If my head hadn't been hurting so much already, I probably would have felt tempted to beat it against a wall. I took her by the upper arm and turned her around, since she was refusing to face me. "I asked you a simple question," I pointed out.

She scoffed at me. "It wasn't a simple question at all, you were trying to imply that I'm some sort of, I don't know, drug-addicted train wreck."

I may have been slightly rude, I conceded, not remembering exactly what I'd said anyway, but I certainly didn't think I'd implied that she needed to be committed. I shook her once. "Are you always like this?" I asked her, instead of responding to her accusation.

She looked me directly in the eyes. "No," she answered petulantly, "only when I get used for sex."

Beside us, an elderly couple who'd be waiting to get through security turned and looked at us with a mixture of surprise and disgust. We moved a little further away from the queue.

"Look, I don't want to discuss that here," I told her in a loud whisper, eyeing the crowds of people about us.

"Here or anywhere."

I let go of her arm, throwing up my hands in defeat. "Well, what do you _want_ me say about it?"

Instead of responding, she stared me down.

Privately I thought it was stupid of me to pretend I didn't know exactly what she wanted to hear: she'd made that perfectly clear in Helheim. As such, she was probably able to tell I was playing innocent. It was a pretty cheap way of dealing with the situation, though, I knew.

I considered my other options.

I could tell her that showering with her was a mistake, but I didn't necessarily believe that, actually. After that confession in Helheim, I knew that if she'd hung about and made doe-eyes at me for any length of time, at some point I'd have felt like taking a risk and giving it a shot. It was probably inevitable, and I didn't regret it, either. It wasn't the act that was the problem, after all, it was Amanda behaving like she was entitled to something more from me after it.

Unexpectedly, I imagined what my Doppelgänger would have to say about my reaction: What exactly did you _expect_ her assumption to be?

I pushed that voice out of my head, feeling a twinge of annoyance that not only could she manipulate me so expertly in reality, but also manage to infiltrate my conscience.

As if reading my mind, Amanda interrupted my internal monologue by saying bleakly, "You don't respect me at all, do you?" She shook her head, her throat bobbing as she swallowed. "You never did before, either."

"That's not fair, Amanda," was all I could manage.

"Oh, is _that_ what's not fair?" Before I could react to that, her phone rang, and she answered it. "Plane's ready," she said shortly, and pushed past me to line up for security.

I stood in place and watched her line up, remove her shoes and go through the scanner.

The whole prospect of dealing with Amanda on top of dealing with what I had done to my mother in Helheim left me completely exhausted. For a moment I considered the possibility of just getting on a different plane and going somewhere else. Seychelles, perhaps. I wondered how long I'd last in a resort before I got bored and had to return home and address what was waiting for me there.

I felt my backpack for the Thrall Stone, and glanced at the monitors in departures. _Amman, Beijing, Manchester, New York..._

I snapped back to my senses, realising what I was doing. Don't be ridiculous, I thought to myself, feeling disgusted, you're not running away from any of this. We're both just horribly tired, it will all blow over.

I remembered chatting away with her while we were examining the power runes; we could get back to that, I decided. We had been friends for ages in uni, and she knew an enormous amount more than I did about the runes I'd videotaped. Probably about a variety of things, actually, and it would be useful to have her available as a resource, however much we argued.

What a sickening irony that she should fill Alister's position in my research, though, given her role – albeit abstract – in his death.

Zip was going to _kill_ me: my Doppelgänger _and_ Amanda at the manor? I winced.

I just hoped Amanda still had some _Nobligan_ and _VikingFjord _left to share with me on the flight home.


	27. Chapter 27

Rebuilt Anew 3.7

By Asynca

* * *

I became aware of something hanging off my arm and struggling like a cod on a fishing line.

Through a cottonwool haze I thought I could decipher people talking about me, and that I was dimly aware of some sort of argument. I couldn't place exactly where I was, and for one sobering moment I thought I might be in hospital.

_That_ made the smoke clear. I struggled to surface, trying to figure out what was going on.

Before I was able to heave my eyelids open, the flat of someone's bandaged palm struck my cheek sharply a few times. "Lara, for chrissake, get up or he'll call an ambulance!" That was Amanda's voice, whispering harshly close to my face.

"I'm awake, I'm awake," I repeated several times by reflex; it wasn't the truth, really, but it would make do for now.

I managed to sit up before my vision cleared – I had been lying down? – and in the process knocked my forehead against something sharp which I figured was probably Amanda's chin. She yelped and I'm fairly sure I apologised.

God, everything... wow. My head was positively _swimming. _At least it wasn't pounding though – I supposed I should be thankful for small mercies. While the world lurched around me, I tried simultaneously to follow Amanda's instructions to get up, and piece together what scant information I had about the past few hours to figure out what was going on.

I quickly discovered I had been lying across the backseat of a private taxi; Amanda seemed to have also been in the back, since her handbag was on the floor near my feet as I sat up. Instinctively, I handed it to her. Rubbing her jaw, she accepted it from me, looking confused.

Outside, I was able to discern a very manicured, very high hedge and a cast-iron fence I recognised. We were in a taxi in the valet circle of my manor.

"How did we get here?" I asked, and then winced at how that sounded.

"The M25," the driver told me, and I looked at him with surprise, of course realising the taxi would not have driven itself. "Would you like some assistance with your luggage?" I had a suspicion he was trying to encourage me to get out of his vehicle as soon as possible. I wondered how long I'd been in it in the first place.

"Thanks," Amanda told him sarcastically, and then extended her hand towards me. I was tempted not to take it, but I had a nasty feeling I'd topple right over if I wasn't holding on to something.

Once I was out of the taxi, I stood for a moment with one hand on Amanda and the other on the roof of the vehicle. I was absolutely out of it: it had to be the knock to the head. If my concussion was worse than I thought it would be, it could only mean that there was some sort of internal bleeding going on in my brain. "I think I should go to hospital," I told her.

She snorted. "You're pathetic."

I stared at her for moment, taking longer than usual to process her comment. "I'm serious, Amanda, I need to get an MRI, people die from—"

"They don't die from two Tramadol, that's for sure. Not even when they have mild concussion."

I heard the sound of crunching gravel along the driveway. "Lara?" That was Winston, and he sounded worried. "Lara, are you alright?"

"Apparently," I managed.

If it was simply sedation, I could probably push through it without doing any damage. I took a few experimental steps away from both Amanda and the car. The world was still pitching around me like a boat at sea, but I'd deal with it.

I accepted my backpack from the driver, slinging it over one shoulder and turning towards Winston. Zip was moving up the driving towards us, a very dark expression on his face. It faltered when he saw how unsteady I was. "Whoa, you okay?"

I nodded at him, and then wished I hadn't. I put a hand to my temple as if that would quiet the vertigo. "Could you grab our bags?"

He said nothing, but accepted my suitcase from the driver. Amanda's, however, he refused. "You can take that to the doghouse," he instructed the driver, in complete seriousness.

"Zip."

He shrugged. "Guest wing isn't refurnished yet. Doghouse or garage: take your pick." He turned away from the driver and Amanda, who was hiding whatever expression she was wearing under a lock of blond hair.

"I'll take the garage," she responded venomously, snatching her suitcase from the driver and heading toward it. I found it somewhat unnerving that she already knew where the garage was, more so than the fact she'd rather sleep in a car than in a local hotel. I suspected that she knew I'd stop her.

"Amanda!" I called to her, and then looked sharply at Zip. "You behave."

"Lara," he said earnestly, taking me by my shoulders. "She tried to kill you. On what planet doesn't that mean anything?"

"I don't know, perhaps on the same planet as the one where she _saves my life_ _twice_." He didn't need to know details about her connection to what my Doppelgänger had done to the manor. "It's rather complicated. You have to trust me."

He sighed heavily, looking unconvinced. However, I could read defeat all over his face.

The driver cleared his throat.

Zip's hands dropped from my shoulders and patted his pockets, probably looking for a wallet. However, Winston was quick to step forward and settle the payment.

I gave my backpack to Zip, who accepted it without hesitating. "Would you mind terribly if I asked you to take everything in? I need to..." I looked in Amanda's direction.

There was a very wry smile on his face. Nodding toward me as I staggered away from him, he said ambiguously, "We've _got_ to get that head of yours checked."

Taking off after Amanda at as fast a pace as I could possibly manage with the ground swaying about me, it took me much longer than I expected to catch up with her. The driveway seemed to curl around the manor forever, and by the time I finally reached her I felt I must have surely run an entire marathon.

"Amanda, wait..." I begun, taking her wrist to stop her. "Zip doesn—"

"—want me around? I got that, thank you. He doesn't want me around, you don't want me around..." She wouldn't make eye contact with me.

"...'think you'll go eat worms'?" There was humour in my voice. She shot me a nasty glare, so I sobered up. "He's just quite protective, and given what happened to Alister, can you blame him?"

She said nothing, her eyes travelling on the ground near my feet. She was clearly waiting for something, and I knew exactly what it was.

"Don't read into this," I instructed her sternly. "My bed is simply enormous. There's plenty of room for you on the other side of it." I paused, reflecting on how that sounded. "Just for tonight, at least. I'll get Winston to make sure the insurance company sorts out beds in the guest quarters first thing tomorrow morning."

She shifted, saving face by pretending to be reluctant. "Well, I guess someone's got to hang around and make sure you don't choke on your own vomit in your sleep."

I made a face. "Charming."

She broke a small grin, looking up at me for a moment before she lifted up her suitcase again. "You should really lie down."

"Exactly my thoughts," I agreed, looking forward to not having to fight with treacherous sense of balance in order to remain upright.

Whilst we were making our way toward my room, I learnt that Amanda hadn't been exaggerating about the Tramadol: I had taken two as per the instructions and basically passed out completely. Amanda's opinion on the matter was that I was a feeble lightweight when it came to prescription medication – she'd apparently had two _and_ a quarter of the bottle of vodka. Privately I thought it was much more likely to be a bad combination of mild concussion, blood loss and actual exhaustion. I'd barely slept a wink the night before.

Amanda also had plenty of humiliating detail to give about escorting me between the plane and the taxi, because I didn't remember even a moment of it. Everything between arguing with her at the airport and waking up in the taxi was a complete blank. But, despite my memory black hole, apparently I'd been semi-lucid and able to walk supported. I didn't care to know more than that, even if Amanda was keen on trying to rub it in.

"That's really quite enough," I had been telling her as we'd entered my room, but the subject was completely forgotten when I noticed my bed already had an unexpected occupant.

My Doppelgänger had changed back into her original bodysuit and was reclined in the centre of my bed, watching us intently as we entered. I was too surprised to remember I was supposed to be angry with her.

Amanda stopped dead in her tracks for a second, before continuing into my room. "How did _you_ get here so fast?" She asked my Doppelgänger, distaste audible.

"Magic," my Doppelgänger replied neutrally, and for a split second I thought she might have been serious. Her very slight smile was the only indicator she was being sarcastic.

"Does this mean I'm banished to the couch?" Amanda inquired, faux-casually. I knew the answer to the question was far more important to her that she was letting on.

My Doppelgänger looked from Amanda to me, and reacted to my expression. Since I had absolutely no idea what expression I had been making, I didn't know how to placate her. She immediately swung her legs over the side of the bed. "I can sleep elsewhere," she said quickly. "I've no wish to intrude."

"You're not intruding," I said automatically, and then cringed. "Well, actually, technically you are, but it's no bother."

With both of them looking expectantly at me, I felt an inordinate amount of pressure to make sure the next thing that came out of my mouth wouldn't sound like I was choosing one of them over the other. A wave of exhaustion hit me, and steadied myself against the doorframe. "Since you two are clearly used to sharing, _I'll_ sleep on the couch." I wasn't particularly happy about that decision, but I was too tired to start another argument.

Despite my best intentions, Amanda took offense to what I'd said. "What makes you think _that_!" she asked me indignantly, with far too strong an objection.

"How diplomatic of you," my Doppelgänger observed of me, ignoring Amanda. I watched her closely, but could make out absolutely no emotion on her face. "It is no trouble for me to sleep elsewhere. Therefore, I'll spare you of actually needing to carry out that offer by leaving you two be."

That was the point that I should have stopped her, but I didn't. Instead, I felt a flood of relief knowing I was about to lie down in the comfort of my own bed. I didn't even care that I'd have to share it for a night with the grumpiest woman in all of Britain.

I did touch her arm as she slipped past me, though. "Thank you," I acknowledged quietly.

She watched me for a moment, her eyes veiled by sentiment I couldn't identify. She then nodded and left.


	28. Chapter 28

Rebuilt Anew 3.8

By Asynca

* * *

The sensation of lying perfectly still was odd. The bed felt as if it might have been rocking on the waves, and my body felt like it was pitching backwards and I were being sucked by my head down a plughole. However dramatic that sounded, though, the movements felt gentle and were actually quite pleasant. I quickly forgot exactly where I was and felt like I could have been dozing in my boat on the Thailand foreshore.

As per usual, though, being the first day home, I was completely unable to actually sleep. Even the residual Tramadol didn't help.

When the covers shifted beside me, I remembered suddenly that I had company. I turned my head to see if she'd managed to drift off.

Amanda's eyes were wide open, and she was watching me with a rather unsettling intensity.

"Can't sleep?" she asked me, although I knew it wasn't what she wanted to say.

I was silent, feeling a little invaded by the whole situation. I considered asking her to get out of the bed, or leaving it myself and taking a couple of pillows to the chaise longue. I didn't do either.

"I used to imagine this, you know. In university."

Splendid, I thought sarcastically, confession time. I quickly chastised myself for being so horribly insensitive. It can't have been easy for her. I drew the covers closer to my chin, and regarded her apprehensively.

"Things never turn out the way you want, do they?" I had a terrible sinking feeling that her eyes might be filling with tears. I looked closely at them, but in the darkness of the twilight I was unable to tell.

I hesitated, trying to decide if it was a good time to be direct. "What _is_ it you want, Amanda?" I feared I already knew the answer.

She was holding back tears, I was sure of it. "You," she said simply.

I didn't rush my response to that. "Not to sound self-depreciating, but why? I'm certainly not the model girlfriend, and I've no intention of ever becoming one." Nor did I think she was, for that matter.

She shook her head against the pillow, finishing the movement with a slight shrug. I had a feeling there was a long history of soul-searching behind that simple movement.

I couldn't help feeling guilty, although none of it was my own fault. "I'm not gay," I added, although it really wasn't the reason I didn't want to get involved with her.

"Neither am I," she snapped back, sounding absurdly hurt by the suggestion. On reflection, I supposed it had been a stupid thing of me to say; all either of us knew about each other was that we had both previously been involved with men.

I looked back up at the canopy of my bed, following the scoops of fabric with my eyes as I considered the situation I found myself in.

"Can I..." Amanda asked at last, edging toward me.

I looked back at her sharply. "I don't think that would be a terribly good idea, Amanda," I told her. "I'm not interested and you're going to get hurt."

Wisps of soft hair were falling across her face. "That's not a 'no'," she breathed.

When I didn't protest, she slid across to me and slipped a bandaged hand under my nightgown, trailing her bare fingertips across it and up my rib cage.

I exhaled, looking back upward. I should have _known_ this would happen, I figured, but didn't stop her.

Edging a bent knee between my legs for support, she propped herself over me, a horrible sense of sorrow and regret visible on her as we watched each other. After a long stretch of silence, she leant in, kissing my lips only very superficially before dipping down my chin and kissing slowly, luxuriously along my jaw.

Physically, the feeling was rather agreeable: her lips moving languorously on my neck and the lingering effects of the Tramadol made a very harmonious synergy. Emotionally, however, I felt extremely uncomfortable.

I pushed her ever so slightly away, just enough so that her lips were pulled from my beck. "This is madness, Amanda. We have to stop."

"But we're both enjoying it." She sounded upset and confused. "And I'm probably not going to get another chance to do this to you." The hand under my nightgown massaged one of my breasts, as if to demonstrate.

It _did_ feel good, I granted her that, but that was beside the point. "I can't let you do this. I think we'd make a great team academically, and if we take this too far we'll ruin any chance of ever being able to find out if that's true."

She scowled, lowering her eyes. "Be serious, Lara, how much more ruined can our relationship really be than it already is?" She withdrew her hand from under the covers and lifted the lock of hair from her face, indicating the scar on her cheek. I pressed my lips together as I looked at it, remembering as the helicopter had flown off how annoyed I'd been that I'd not killed her.

She did have a point, but I still felt uneasy about it. I needed some time to think about how to handle the situation. "I need a drink," I lied, extracting myself from underneath her and sitting up. The room still felt a little rotary, but nothing like it had before.

To get a drink I could easily have gone to my en suite – and she must have noticed I didn't – but instead I left my room, heading for the guest bathroom at the end of the hall.

However, when I reached it, I decided what I really needed was some fresh air.

The French doors to the nearby north terrace were freshly varnished, and I wrinkled my nose against the acrid after smell as I twisted the lock and pushed them both open.

A gentle, cool breeze blew a few strands of hair across my face, and I threaded them behind my ear as I approached the balustrade.

As I was considering how clean the yard looked now compared to several days ago, a voice serendipitously said, "You look much younger with your hair loose."

I glanced over my shoulder; my Doppelgänger wouldn't have cared at all about how young or old I looked with my hair however I had it. She was merely trying to draw my attention to the fact she was also there.

"Do you always follow me?" I asked, meaning it as a genuine query and not an accusation.

She remained still, leaning against the manor wall with a leg bent so one boot was planted against it. She had her arms crossed. "It should be I who is asking you that very question."

My eyebrows arched a little. "You came out here, too?" This was my favourite balcony, I would often come out here to read in the evening on the odd occasion when it wasn't overcast and drizzling.

She smiled slightly. "We are essentially the same person. Why does that knowledge surprise you?"

That, I didn't have an answer for. Instead, I looked back to the horizon.

A long, relaxed silence stretched between us, unfortunately allowing my mind to wander back to the events in my bedroom. I also had no answers about what to do with Amanda. I was worried if I flatly rejected her to be safe, she'd hang about looking horribly miserable and being grumpy and insufferable. On the other hand, if I let anything further happen between us, I risked deeply injuring her. It was lose-lose, really. Either way she'd get hurt, and either way we'd not be able to work together.

"She's crying, you know. She'd never tell you."

I didn't ask how my Doppelgänger was able to hear her, because I was too consumed with a sudden stabbing feeling in my chest. God, that made me feel simply _awful. _"And why would _you_ tell me?" I demanded a little mordantly.

She shrugged, but didn't reply.

It occurred to me that she was back in her bodysuit again, and I welcomed a change of subject. "Why did you change, by the way? That thing can't be comfortable." I turned around to face her, leaning against the cold stone.

She was completely unreadable. "I don't belong in your clothes."

My brow lowered in genuine confusion. "It's no bother, really. You're welcome to them."

She chuckled silently, as if she knew something I didn't. After a few moments of watching me placidly, she spoke again. "You used to call me 'Lara', you know." I recalled doing so, and said nothing as she continued, "But that's not the right term for me, is it?"

I narrowed my eyes at her, feeling as if she were leading somewhere. "What _is_ the right term for you, then?" I asked of her, perhaps suspiciously.

Instead of answering, she countered, "How does it feel to be with Amanda?"

If any other person had asked me that question, I'd have taken a swing at them. However, I was instinctively aware that she wasn't intending to either pry or be malicious. "Rather uncomfortable, to be honest, if you mean what do I think about it."

"Why?"

It was a question I actually needed the answer to myself. I shook my head. "Too many things to consider, I suppose."

"Logically, you should be accepting her proposal," she told me outright, "because if you reject her, she will only keep attempting to change your mind until eventually you lose all patience and throw her out. If you throw her out now, which I know you have considered, you'll lose a valuable resource." She paused. "The only possible chance of true reconciliation and retaining her as an asset is for you to accept her."

That was far too simplistic an evaluation. Retain her as a what? "She's not a drone, you realise. She has feelings I need to consider, not just a library of knowledge in her head that I want access to."

Something about what I said stung her, I thought. I tilted my head, indicating she should explain.

"Drone," she repeated bleakly, "is the appropriate term for me."

I scoffed at that. "Don't be ridiculous. You're nothing of the sort."

She looked unmoved. "I understand why you have a need to personalise me."

"It's nothing about my personal needs," I corrected her, and was surprised that I was raising my voice. "Look at how you behave, what you do. Why you came to see me here in the first place. You _are_ a person." I gestured toward her, feeling unexpected and confusing anger boiling in me at the suggestion she wasn't. "So you look like me, that's irrelevant. You're a whole, separate person."

"I'm a creature masterfully constructed of offal and Eitr to match your DNA, just as your mother was when you raised her, regardless of how either of us looked or behaved. You'd do well to remember that, in the coming weeks."

"Do well to remember— what on _earth_ are you talking about?"

She watched me, a certain peace about her. My heart, on the other hand, was pounding in my chest. "I'm just being philosophical," she told me dismissively. "I suggest you return to Amanda, and consider what I've said."

Taking a single step towards the French doors, she held them open for me. I wanted to discuss the matter further, because I hadn't a clue what she was on about. However, it was very clear to me that she considered the conversation over and I sincerely doubted I'd be able to extract any more information from her at that point.

So, I took her invitation and allowed myself to be ushered back through the doors. To my disappointment, she didn't follow me back down the corridor as I returned to my room but made off in another direction.

Amanda had her face buried in a pillow when I entered and sat on the edge of the bed. I gazed through my knees at my slightly bruised ankles as I tried to make sense of anything that had happened in the last forty-eight hours. It may have been the Tramadol, or the head injury, but I just couldn't seem to piece any of it together. I felt like someone had removed my usually reliable brain and filled the space with fluff.

Amanda's hand very tentatively touched mine, and I let her interlace the tips of our fingers over the bandages. Staring at our two hands, I wondered if my Doppelgänger were right.

Unfortunately, through a jumble of conflicting emotions, I thought that she probably was. It seemed like completely the wrong way to make a decision to not take one's own feelings into account in the process, though. Even if I wasn't sure exactly what my feelings were, I felt they deserved consideration. However, if I wasn't able to work through them and come to a decision based on them, wouldn't the logical option be to take the route with the best objective outcome?

I envied my Doppelgänger's clear mind and the ease at which she thought and made decisions, unburdened by all the annoyances I had to bother with. She truly was a heightened version of me. As such, I didn't understand why she seemed so critical of the improvements that had been made to her.

"I'm sorry," Amanda murmured behind me, her voice wavering. "I shouldn't have pressured you."

I shook my head, not turning toward her. "No, _I'm_ sorry."

"You are?"

"You've been nothing but honest, and I'm afraid I just don't have any answers for you." At her silence, I chose not to elaborate, glancing back at her.

She watched me with a similar peace to that I had seen in my Doppelgänger not minutes before. "I knew what I was in for," she said, wistful. "I also knew you'd say no, but I guessed I had to try."

I smiled at her, watching with simple pleasure as she mirrored it, tears glimmering in her eyes.

How strange to be at peace with such a fate, I thought, feeling ill at being the cause of it.

Comparing Amanda's fatalism to my Doppelgänger's once again, I then had a sudden, violent realisation. 'Looked or behaved', she'd said, speaking of herself and my mother in _past tense. _

A hot flood of adrenaline suddenly made everything sickeningly clear.

I stood up as the room felt like it was collapsing on me.

"Lara?" Amanda sounded alarmed.

I couldn't explain anything, I just had to find my Doppelgänger _now._


	29. Chapter 29 & Chapter 30

Rebuilt Anew 3.9

By Asynca

* * *

Slight gore warning. No eating and simultaneously reading this chapter unless you're pioneering new methods of bulimia.

* * *

Sprinting through my manor in bare feet brought back a whole torrent of bad memories. This time, I had to not only contend with those, but also with a very shaky centre of balance. I nearly pitched forwards down the gallery stairs as I tried to scale two at a time.

I knew exactly where she'd be, but I wasn't a hundred percent certain how to get in. I assumed – and discovered I was right – that the crack in the foundation of the floor had been patched up. Not properly repaired yet, mind you, because they needed an engineer to sort out the details with the rebuilding architect and the National Trust. All the bureaucracy of repairing load-bearing floor of a heritage-listed building meant that for now, there was only planking over it.

Well, I'd have to un-repair it, I figured, smashing a nearby fire cabinet and retrieving the axe. I set to work on it, minding my feet.

I had nearly created a sizable hole when a heard a gunshot.

My heart pounding, I stood a little, staring down into the opening. The sound had come from down there, I was sure of it.

Tossing the axe aside, I figured I'd try and squeeze through the hole I'd already managed to make. I scraped my hips trying to force my body through it, but eventually I found myself hanging by my fingertips from one of the boards.

Not a second to lose, I let go and let myself drop into the darkness.

I knew I remembered there was a slope to land on close to the fissure, but unfortunately I'd not remembered exactly how far down it had been because I'd been using my grapple on previous excursions. As a result I freefell for I don't know how far, panic filling me as it belatedly occurred to me the builders may have cleared the rubble and removed the rocks altogether.

Then, thankfully, my bare feet hit stone but slipped at the angle of it, causing my back and shoulders to connect solidly with rock. I gasped as the air was forced out of me.

I had been delivered to the ground at the base of the slope before I was able to draw a single breath.

One of the torches on the far wall had been lit, and I was able to confirm that I'd reached my father's secret workshop.

To my immense, immeasurable relief, the Doppelgänger was sitting hunched on the desk, cradling something in her lap. Perhaps she'd just been attacked before and needed to shoot whatever had surfaced?

Disregarding my breathlessness, splinters and fresh bruises, I pushed myself upright and approached her. As I did so, I was able to make out a couple of very distressing details: the item she was cradling was one of my Glock G21s, and there was a flood of Eitr pouring from one of her temples.

I rushed toward her. "Lara, what are you _doing_!" My voice straddled several different registers. I instinctively put my palm to her temple to staunch the flood of blue fluid, but as soon as my fingers made contact with it, I felt like my hand had been put in a fire. Jerking away, I held my hand up in the torchlight to see faint acid burns blossoming on my skin.

At that point, she finally spoke. "You needn't worry," she told me a little ironically, "look."

She cocked the pistol, and then in one smooth motion, placed it casually against her temple.

I yelled something, and launched myself at her, feeling my fingers close around the weapon before I was flipped neatly against the table and pinned by my neck. She only held me for a moment before she released me and pulled the trigger.

Several chunks of flesh and skull fragments sprayed from the other side of her head, glowing blue and suspending mid-air before sucking back into the wound like a headshot on rewind. The whole side of her head glowed and wept Eitr. Despite the fact she'd just blown off half her head momentarily, even her facial expression had hardly changed.

I stared at her, my chest heaving. "But..." I recalled placing my hand against her chest when she'd first invaded my bedroom several days before. "I felt your heartbeat."

She glanced at the gun for a moment, and then placed it beside me on the table and helped me up. A spray of Eitr had hit me when she'd fired, and a small section of the nightgown on my stomach had been burnt and eaten away.

It was so surreal, I wondered if at any moment I would wake up and find myself to have been in a Tramadol-induced nightmare.

I put my fingers to her neck, gently pressing her carotid artery. Her pulse was slow and even, not rapid and faint as it should be after a massive head wound and blood loss. "I don't understand..."

We regarded each other. Eitr was seeping down her neck, and I hurriedly pulled my fingers away to avoid being once again burnt. This close, I could see her skull was already completely healed.

"I'm not real," she told me. "I've come to discover I'm not supposed to be understood." At my intent silence, she elaborated. "I was created for the sole purpose of killing you; I could just have easily have been a reanimated tiger, or some mythological creature. It is simply signature to Natla's sickening manipulation that I am based on you." She drew a thoughtful breath and exhaled at length. "Natla had been intending to destroy me once I had carried out the purpose of my design."

"So, what, you were planning on finishing Natla's work?"

She didn't answer my question directly. "I'm too dangerous. Surely you must see that: I am purely a weapon. A weapon that by design is supposed to be hard for you to kill."

I put my hands to my aching head, as if the movement could steady my racing mind. "That's all bollocks, all that talk about your purpose and what you're designed for. Complete and utter _rot_!" My voice was so loud that my throat felt raw. "You're not tethered to Natla anymore. You can create your own purpose."

She was unmoved by my outburst. "Your affection for me is clouding your better judgment." Her voice was quiet. "It was a mistake to reveal myself to you in the first place, I see that now. I represent more than I am."

The rattle of debris falling down a wall and an eruption of foul language turned us both towards the entrance. Having landed rather more gracefully than I had, Amanda walked into the torchlight, looking hesitant and apprehensive.

Her eyes flew immediately to the Eitr spilling down my Doppelgänger's neck. She hung back, looking between us, unsure how to react.

I opened my mouth to tattle on my Doppelgänger to Amanda, hoping to get some support – but then immediately realised how completely fruitless that would be. Amanda shared my Doppelgänger's new, infuriating opinion of herself as some sort of soulless monster.

My Doppelgänger looked back to me. "I found the answers I was looking for. I should thank you for that."

I felt _sick_. It was all horribly, terribly wrong. "You found the _wrong_ answers," I told her emphatically. "Killing yourself is _never_ the right thing to do. It's just lucky that you can't actually do it."

"I need your help."

My mouth fell open and I my chest swelled with rage at the suggestion. "_No!_" My voice echoed off the stone walls.

Amanda looked uncomfortable, but eerily calm. I took a threatening step toward her. "Don't tell me you _agree_ with her!" I demanded.

She pressed her lips together, her brow quivering. "You know what I think, Lara." I shook my head incredulously at her, deliberately displaying my disgust as she continued. "She looks like you, she acts like you, but she's just a thrall."

I looked back to my Doppelgänger, expecting her to be bothered by this suggestion as she had been the previous times it had been made. Now, she just looked on in calm agreement.

Amanda reached out to put a hand on my shoulder. I pushed it violently away and took several cagey steps away from both of them.

In contrast to the neutrality of my Doppelgänger, Amanda's hurt at being pushed away was visible. To her credit, though, for once she didn't get defensive and have a go at me. Instead, she remained still. "I made the same mistake at first, too," she confessed. "But, Lara, she's just a copy of you. You wouldn't feel anything for her at all if she looked different."

I thought about all the times that the Doppelgänger had clearly known what I was thinking, had mirrored my behaviour and exacted what I had been intending to. "That is categorically untrue," I told them both angrily.

"You are going about this in entirely the wrong fashion," my Doppelgänger interjected, looking at me. "You need to put aside your emotions and forget about what I have come to represent to you. Focus on the cold, hard facts: you met me not three days ago and our shared behaviour is solely result of the fact I am a copy of you. A copy with the humanity removed." Her voice was gentle. "I'm not a person. I look like one, but I'm not." She put her fingers to the Eitr spilling from her temple, holding her hand out towards me to show me. "You have witnessed the truth of this."

Well, she certainly _sounded_ like a person. "But don't you _want_ to keep living?" I asked, disbelief creeping into my voice.

"As you have witnessed, I am already not living. There will never be a life to be had for me."

I looked between the two of them, from the worry on Amanda's face to the signature impassiveness I had come to expect of my Doppelgänger. "You're both mad," I accused them, but I could already hear that I didn't quite believe it. To my Doppelgänger, I said resolutely, "Sorry, I won't help you kill yourself."

My Doppelgänger and Amanda glanced at each other, and it was Amanda that spoke. "You know Natla," she said patiently. "You know what she's like, how cruel and manipulative she is." She paused. "She created the Doppelgänger for killing you. Do you think it's an accident that she chose a form for this weapon that she thought you'd never in a million years find it within yourself to destroy?"

Amanda's comment rang true to me in a way that nothing else my Doppelgänger had said did.

When I thought on it, I could really recognise Natla's touch in her. In the scheme of things, I'd only known my Doppelgänger momentarily – hardly more than two or three days! – and yet in that time she'd managed to get under my skin, to worm her way into my affection in a way that no one, _no one_ ever had before.

I had a horrible sinking feeling in my stomach that despite how terrifically extreme my Doppelgänger's solution was to the problem of herself, she was unfortunately right. It was just all so catastrophically sudden!

I wasn't sure who in the universe was charged with deciding when something upset the balance, but if I pushed aside my feelings, I understood what my Doppelgänger meant about her not being supposed to still exist. What place in the scheme of things would she occupy? _Could_ she occupy, for that matter? Any hint of her true identity as a thrall would send the mobs and the pitchforks to _my_ door. It wouldn't be hard for her to be uncovered, either. I periodically had paparazzi trail me and I was too well known for her to be able to move freely about the world. I would offer her the opportunity to live with me in my manor, but I knew, myself, that I could never live such an existence. And, essentially, she was myself.

No matter which direction I looked at her existence from, I understood why the answer was to end it. I understood, and I _hated_ it.

The prospect of needing to kill her left me sick to my stomach. I took drew long, steadying breaths as I considered it.

"How?" I asked finally, finding no other words.

My Doppelgänger immediately knew what I meant. "Every time you shoot me you need to prevent the fragments blown off from reuniting with my body," she explained mechanically, as if she were detailing how to use a piece of equipment. "It may take dozens of rounds. I'm not sure what percentage of me needs to be destroyed before I no longer function."

I stared at her, the mental image of what she had described unsettling me to the core and reminding me of what I had needed to do in order to destroy my mother as a thrall. However, when I had fired on Mother, she had merely been an ambling zombie with half the body, not a sentient being politely requesting that I kill her.

It wasn't the first time I marvelled at what a truly a Machiavellian genius Natla had been.

Amanda had been lost in thought as had I. "Lara, wait." It was strange hearing her speak so quietly and assuredly. "I have a better way." I hadn't noticed she was holding the wraith stone until it started to glow a dull red.

My lips parted. "I can do this myself," I told her. "Whatever Natla thought of me, I _am_ strong enough."

"Of course you are." She took a couple of steps towards my Doppelgänger. "But why should you have to? Natla would have practically been salivating at thought of you facing this very dilemma." There was irony in her grin. "I say: screw her."

At that, the Doppelgänger smirked.

This was it, then, I thought. I was suddenly and violently about to lose a connection that I'd never had before, but that had come to fit like an old glove. Even if that connection had been by Natla's design. I really wanted to hug her, but the Eitr that was now covering her shoulders made that impossible. Though I struggled against them, the emotions that constricted me completely prevented me from even explaining how I felt.

When she locked eyes with me, however, I knew I didn't have to explain. "Thank you," was all she said.

My heart caught in my throat.

Amanda's eyes rolled back into her head briefly as she lifted her wraith stone into the air. Before continuing, however, she warned, "You'd better turn away, Lara."

I followed her instructions, thinking they had something to do with the magic she was using. However, as the only thing that struck me was light, I realised that it wasn't her magic she'd been protecting me from.

The radiance from whatever Amanda was doing caused a dark, solid silhouette to fall on the ground in front of me. It was my own shadow, obviously, but I felt oddly disconnected from it and as if it might have a life of its own. The whole event was blindingly fast and numbingly surreal.

When the light stopped, I straightened, turning slowly back towards where my Doppelgänger had been standing.

There was nothing there at all: no body, no ash, no sign there had ever been someone standing there.

Amanda was set uncertainly where I'd left her, eyes glazed as she stared at the empty space. She replaced the stone at her throat, silent.

When she turned to me, I was struck by how desolate a figure she cut. Wearing my nightgown – which was now curled and burnt at the edges from whatever she had done – she looked so delicate and so real. She was nothing more than just another person, I realised.

While I was staring mutely at her, she slowly approached me as one might approach a coiled snake. Gingerly, tentatively, she touched my shoulder, and then guided me against her chest. I could hear her pulse as I laid an ear against her collarbone and felt her arms settle against my back. Amanda's pulse, like mine, was racing.

"If it hurt her," she murmured into my hair, "she's at peace now."

Something tightened in my chest at the mention of peace.

I recalled in vivid, acute detail the blood trickling from the corners of Alister's mouth as he collapsed on the floor of my manor. The desperation as he reached for me and clutched at his stomach was doomed to replay itself over and over in my mind. I watched that catalogue of historical literature, that library of knowledge in his head fade before my eyes as the blood seeped out of him.

Yet, as I had floundered around him, pressing his wound, searching for something to staunch the flow of blood covering the floor about me... he'd looked calmly back up at me. He had known what was coming next, and there had been a stark, foreboding peace in him, too.

He had been one of my closest acquaintances and one of the people I most respected, and, because of me, he had died and became an empty vessel in my arms.

While I'd slipped in his blood trying to pursue his murderer, my muscles straining and my head spinning, he'd been laid out peacefully on the parquetry, his lips slightly parted and his body perfectly relaxed.

And my poor mother... I had spent years metaphorically slipping in her blood for nothing. I couldn't have saved her.

It gave me absolutely no comfort to know that any of them were at peace, because _I_ wasn't.

With that realisation, the world suddenly realigned. The turmoil and cottonwool in my brain suddenly cleared and I understood what was going on around me and within me. The paralysis and confusion made perfect, reasonable sense. It was just grief, and, _God,_ I'd lost them!

I felt acutely the presence of a sudden, gaping hole in me.

Taking a gulping breath as hot tears spilled down my cheeks, I tried to push reflexively away from Amanda. She held me fast as I struggled. "It's okay," she whispered.

'Okay' was what everything certainly wasn't. However, she was much stronger than I expected her to be, and it quickly became clear that I wasn't going to be able to get free without hurting her. I had a brief mental image of slugging her in the stomach and afterward her looking up at me with pain and confusion, and was simply horrified by the idea. It occurred to me that, technically, I'd already been doing that to her.

I almost didn't recognise myself when I considered how I'd treated her since we'd left Helheim. The memories of me disregarding her – especially given they were in relation to the Doppelgänger – were so uncomfortable they physically hurt, squeezing at my chest and causing me to struggle for breath.

And, yet, here she was, holding me. Taking bullets for me still while I'd just been taking her for granted.

She smelt like incense, I thought, laying my wet cheek back on her shoulder. In university I'd always thought it was actually incense, because she was always trying to recreate rituals to research them. It must have been her signature perfume, though. It was so very fitting for her.

A hand stroked my hair, and, despite everything, I found it comforting.

Stray guilt still plagued me: that I should be relaxed and able to enjoy being touched while Alister, my mother and my Doppelgänger were dead and unable to enjoy anything at all. I knew it was irrational, but there was nothing I could do to not feel it, regardless.

I had a tough slog ahead of me, I realised, feeling empty. I was so lucky to have someone who wanted to stay and help me with it.

I pulled away slowly, looking up at her. There was a quiet desolation about her, and the way she looked back at me was guarded. There was no mystery there; I'd rather flatly rejected her earlier.

With her fingertips, she wiped the remaining tears from my cheeks. I leaned my chin against her bandaged palm. A flash of hope passed over her face, and I tried to catch it by reaching up with my own hand and cupping her cheek. Exploring the uneven skin of her scar with my thumb, I could scarcely believe I'd done that to her. "Enough," I murmured.

Her throat bobbed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," I said quietly, feeling her begin to heave her every breath, "Natla's gone, everything's over, there's no reason for us to be set up as enemies anymore. No one else needs to be lost."

Her lower lip quivered. "Are you saying—?"

"Thank you," I interrupted her. "I'm saying thank you. And," I paused, unsure how to give enough weight to what followed, "And, yes."

With that, her own tears spilt down her face and onto me as she leant down, desperately seeking my lips. I opened them easily to her, tasting salt and feeling absolved. It was confronting knowing she was openly crying as we kissed, I felt the burden of being trusted to see that side of her. It was terrifying and at the same time exhilarating, like sky diving for the first time. I wanted more, and I wanted to get lost in it. I wanted her to help me get lost enough to forget what else I'd lost.

When we finally broke away from each other, hot breath mingling between us, she was smiling at me. I queried her, and she chuckled. "I should never have listened to her," she said cryptically, and I assumed she meant Natla.

"Well, neither should've I."

"Truce?"

I could have laughed at her choice of words, I was so exhausted and drained. "Absolutely," I told her, pulling her down to me again. "Truce."

* * *

FIN


	30. Epilogue

Rebuilt Anew Epilogue

* * *

I awoke around midnight, when the shutters on the Library window blew shut suddenly and startled me. I'd been sleeping fitfully in the leather recliner anyway, my skin adhering to the surface by a layer of fine sweat.

It was a balmy summer's evening right before a storm, and the humidity had drained every ounce of energy I had left in me after spending all day flipping, climbing and dangling as part of a gruelling training session. I'd been trying and get used to a new, slightly larger model of backpack.

Peeling myself out of the chair, I walked over to the window and fastened it closed, looking up at the foreboding clouds gathering outside. Lightning flashed on the horizon some distance away. I watched for a few minutes to see if I could spot it again – my father always said it was good luck to see a bolt when it struck – and then gave up when the wait proved futile.

I had been on my way back to my room when I spotted a lamp still on in the tech room.

I stopped to peer over the banister of the hall promenade. It wasn't unusual for Zip to still be up at this time of night, but whenever he was up I'd know from the other end of the house because there would be tasteless American music blaring at full dial.

Rather than black dreads, I spotted a blond head bent double over something on the circular desk.

Curious, I headed down the stairs to have a look at what she was doing.

Cigarette smoke hung in the air as I entered through the glass doors, waving irritably at it to disperse it. I _hated _it when she smoked inside, but I suspected that that was half the reason she would so deliberately do it. It was also harder to escape now since she'd managed to crack Zip's campaign to quit and get him onto them again. Well, it was their bodies, I figured. They could destroy them in whatever manner they saw fit. Since they were ordinarily the only ones who used the tech room, it was of no concern to me what they did here.

"You're up late," I observed, wandering over to her and peering over her shoulder. She was perched on the edge of a stool, and had a loupe held up awkwardly to her eye as she leant against the display of a portable microfilm storage unit. The position looked rather uncomfortable.

"Well," she said mildly, "if those assholes at Cambridge could find a measly two grand in their enormous pockets to order a digital microfiche scanner, maybe I'd be in bed by now."

I raised my eyebrows. "I see."

She was wearing a white ribbed tank top, and in the heat her sweat had made the straps a little transparent. I placed my hands at the base of her neck, wondering if I'd get in trouble for pushing the straps off her shoulders.

She sighed, relaxing the loupe away from her face and lifting her head. "Yeah, good idea, I could really use one right now," there was gratitude audible in her voice, and I realised she thought I meant to give her a shoulder massage.

Smiling to myself, I obliged. She sat up in the stool away from the storage unit, relaxing into my hands. "I was _this_ close to being able to publish," she said eventually, referring to our escapades in Helheim some weeks before. "If only I had that stone."

Privately I thought my Doppelgänger's decision to hide the Thrall stone prior to leaving had been a very wise one; but, then, I was biased. Amanda didn't share my opinion at all, and had spent a good two weeks turning my house over looking for it, until I pointed out that my Doppelgänger had been well able to cover large distances quickly and it could be hidden anywhere in England. Then, deciding my brain was the best link she had to where my Doppelgänger could have hidden the stone, Amanda had proceeded to grill me relentlessly until I'd very nearly thrown her out of the house. I managed to get her to stop by pointing out to her that if _I'd_ been my Doppelgänger, I'd have made sure to hide the stone somewhere where I wouldn't guess it would be.

Unfortunately, without the stone Amanda had no artefact on which to base her research, and she'd been unable to convince any of the universities that would otherwise have been interested to fund and host her.

Instead, they had her trawling through cratefulls of old microfilm, looking for a link between Scythian mythology and Neolithic Germanic polytheism. It might have been something she would have done herself given the motivation, but she certainly wasn't interested in hypotheticals while she had _actual_ ritual to report on. The only reason she'd agreed to do it at all was because she was convinced if she found a strong enough link, someone would sponsor her Power Rune research.

"Mmm," I agreed neutrally. If I made any further comment, I'd fire up her anger at the situation again.

After a few minutes of brooding, she commented. "So you're still in one piece."

She was referring to my new backpack. "Yes, thankfully." I reflected on my training session as I kneaded her muscles. "I didn't really notice how big it was until I put the weights in it, though." I stopped for a moment to show her a bruise on the inside of my elbow. "Still plenty work to be done getting the hang of it."

When I didn't start again, she glanced back at me, a grin visible. "Hey, I didn't tell you to stop."

"You don't tell me to anything," I reminded her, smiling. If she tried, it was a sure-fire way of making sure I wouldn't do it.

She spun the stool around to face me, snaking one hand around the back of my thigh and using the other to pull down the front of my top and expose the chasm between my breasts. While she buried her nose in it playfully, I kissed the crown of her head, and wrinkled my nose. "You smell like smoke," I complained.

She surfaced for a moment to comment dryly, "Yeah? Well, you taste like dirt."

Wasn't much I could say to that, seeing as it were probably true. I shut up and glanced up towards the door that lead to the wing that Winston and Zip slept in to check it was closed. Satisfied we were probably safe, I pulled my singlet over my head in one single movement, discarding it somewhere on the floor nearby.

"Looks like Metaphysics isn't getting my update tonight." Amanda's hands had already rounded my back to unfasten my bra, which quickly joined my top on the floor. Cupping my now bare breasts, she leaned up to capture my mouth.

I let her, running my tongue along the inside of her upper lip while I pushed her singlet down around her waist. She had a reasonably new tattoo on the side of one of her breasts, and it was gagging to be kissed. I broke away from Amanda's lips and leaned down, putting my mouth over the technicolour ink.

She laughed, and I looked up quizzically over the curves of her breast at her. "You do know that's a Polynesian Tiki for the God of Fire, right?"

I didn't, but it hardly mattered. "How fitting," I circled my tongue on it. "He tastes hot."

She smirked, threading her fingers through my ponytail. "We're going to end up with a pile of ashes where your manor used to be if you keep that up."

I snorted. "Nonsense. He's probably fetched a beer and is enjoying the floor show."

I strummed her other nipple with a fingertip and watched her face as she reacted to it. Abandoning her angry Tiki, I dragged my lips sideways and sucked one of her areola into my mouth. Her eyes fell slowly shut and her lips parted.

My hand had been resting on her bare thigh for support. I transferred my weight to my legs and slid the flat of my hand very slowly up her thigh to the hem of her shorts. When I dog-nosed my fingertips inside the hem, she spread her legs a little, breathing heavily at the suggestion.

I let her breast fall from my mouth, and positioned my torso between her hips, an elbow on either of her knees. I spent a few luxurious moments grinning up at her as she opened her eyes, leaning back against the table and gaping at me with mute anticipation. Her chest heaved, her breasts sitting back against her ribs.

I had only just breached the waistline of her shorts – she'd let her head tilt back towards the ceiling – when there was a loud knock on the main door.

Amanda's eyes flew wide up and she sat bolt upright. "Goddamn it!"

We waited a few moments in silence, staring at the door, hoping nothing would happen.

Unfortunately, another series of knocks was then followed by a man's voice calling, "Hello?"

"What on..." She stood up crossly, nearly knocking me over. Storming out of the tech room on a warpath to the front door, she pulled up her singlet on the way. She wasn't wearing a bra, but that wasn't so unusual, given the heat. I felt uncomfortable about her answering my door looking somewhat indecent, though. If it turned out to be paparazzi, I'd be in for it.

Speaking of indecency, I searched about the floor for my own bra and top, hurriedly fastening them up as I followed her.

Amanda had wrenched open the door, beginning a tirade of abuse about bothering us in the middle of the night. The words died on her lips.

As I rounded the door, I spied a figure crouched subserviently in the doorway, and for a moment didn't recognise him.

"Mistress..." he began, reaching out and trying to hand something to her.

A light bulb switched on in my head: it was the Mercenary thrall Amanda had created in Helheim.

Amanda took a step warily away from him, holding her hands upward so he was unable to present her whatever he was offering. "You!" she accused.

On closer inspection, I saw he was trying to give her a _lily_. At that, I had to laugh aloud. In my experience, if you exploited magic by using it for your own purposes, there was always a price to be paid. Amanda was getting her comeuppance for exploiting the Thrall stone and the look on her face was absolutely _priceless_.

"I did as you asked, Mistress," he declared proudly, still persisting to try and bestow her with the flower.

I raised an eyebrow at Amanda, crossing my arms and waiting for her explanation.

She had a trenchant scowl on her face as she gave up and accepted the Lily, holding it onerously away as if it might infect her with something. "I told him to go away and do something I'd never thought he'd finish."

As if prompted, he then announced, "There are fourteen million, eight hundred thousand, three hundred and seven rocks spread across all beaches of the Svalbard archipelago."

Mission complete, he went back to grovelling.

Amanda and I both stared down at him on the doorstep, at a loss as to how to handle his appearance.

"You know," Amanda said thoughtfully, "I really hate my life."

* * *

If you've made it this far, why not review? Tell me what worked and didn't work for you - it helps me become a better writer.

* * *

Acknowledgments:

I'd like to thank the academy... well, there are several people I'd like to thank. A number of readers have been kind enough to point out typos where they notice them, and since I get swept up in the scene and am terrible with little details, that contribution is great.

Primarily, though, I'd like to thank Tirah for being a ruthless slavedriver and constantly hounding me to update and finish this (as well as not skimping on the criticism when she felt something was out of character). Tirah, your soul-destroying emotional blackmail is most appreciated, in the end.


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